Nothing can move our countrymen into a mad frenzy quite like the mention of the words “Zionist” and “conspiracy,” especially if they’re in the same sentence. Rampant corruption, social decay, food and water shortages – when it comes to public outrage, none of that compares to our so-called and temporary unity over any and all attempts to fend off the obvious international plot to undermine all Muslims.
The “blasphemous content” fiasco sparked by the misappropriated “Draw Muhammad Day” on Facebook has had our whole country foaming at the mouth for some time now; so far nearly 800 URLs have been banned at the orders of the government and while there is no word on any official list, a petition in the Lahore High Court resulted in sites like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Amazon being added to the ever-growing list.
When will we learn?
The world does not run on the whims of Pakistan or any other Muslim for that matter. Moreover I would venture as far as to say other people have better things to do than devote their whole lives to plotting the downfall of the Muslims – we’re doing a pretty darned good job of that ourselves.
We’ve already shamed ourselves enough, please let us for once try to shatter the image of Muslims as backwards, oppressive, inconsiderate tyrants rather than very effectively re-inforce it? And while we’re at it, can we please get out of this illusion that the world is out to get us?
Banning a search engine. For crying out loud, when will this madness end?
Just to set the record straight, I do not support blasphemous content, but please also remember that the internet is a free place – if you find something offensive please just do not go look at it! That’s what the rest of the educated world does, and I imagine we’d benefit a great deal by doing the same.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
– Abraham Maslow
What’s even more depressing than the fact that we’re making a mockery of ourselves internationally is that we are then expecting everyone to abide by our sense of right and wrong. We all know what our PTA is capable of if given rein to carry out “selective” banning of pages – we caused a worldwide outage of YouTube that lasted several hours. Remember here that YouTube is the 3rd most visited site on the internet, with Google and Facebook in the first and second slot respectively (source: Alexa). And we’ve tried banning all three of them.
As if that weren’t enough it seems we’ve only just discovered there’s pornography on the internet! And Pakistanis actually go look at it! Oh dear oh dear, who would have thought. And you thought we’d gotten over the days of people thinking the internet was nothing more than a porn distribution network, did you? As a result, internet cafes across the country are suddenly receiving bomb threats, and today two in Lahore got blast “warnings” that left 7 people injured.
When will we learn?
There is pornography online and there is blasphemy too – and the only thing you can do about it is not go look at it in the first place. Remember that it is only *you* who thinks it is “wrong,” and attempts to try and force others into accepting your sense of right and wrong will only result in more ridicule for yourself. If only we could spend half the time we allot to uncovering Jewish plots and planning conquests of Delhi (I refer, of course, to the infamously over-the-top Zaid Hamid), we as a nation of Pakistanis and Muslims would not be in a position of World Wide Jester in the first place.
If you think Facebook is part of a Zionist conspiracy to undermine Islam – by all means delete your account and the thousands of photos you’ve uploaded at once. If you think YouTube hosts nothing more than lewd, pornographic content meant to lead young’uns astray, please refrain from typing its address in to your browser. Never mind all the good things the internet has brought us. You just go ahead and block the whole internet, who needs it in the first place. We still have our politicians and morning talk show hosts to be entertained by.
Meanwhile I’ll be on Facebook plotting world domination if you need me.