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Facebook fiasco
This is painful to write. Ideally I would have preferred not to have had to write this post. But I have over 300...
The writer is Frederick S Pardee Professor of global public policy at Boston Univeristy (adil.najam@tribune.com.pk)
This is painful to write. Ideally I would have preferred not to have had to write this post. But I have over 300 messages in my inbox of people commenting over the so-called “Draw Muhammad Day” page on the social networking site Facebook. And now the Lahore High Court’s decision calling for a ban on Facebook has forced the issue to the forefront. And that is what pains me.
I hope that Facebook’s administration will remove the page. Not because of any ‘banning’ movement and not because of the Lahore High Court but just because the page and the idea behind it is inflammatory and offensive. Regardless of what your belief or religion might be, to throw out offensive and hateful vitriolic for the simple and primary purpose of hurting someone else’s feelings is inhuman, cruel and clearly offensive. If Facebook does not recognise that, then it knows nothing about being ‘social’ or about ‘networking’ and certainly not about ‘community’.
But at one level, that matters little now. Whether Facebook removes the offensive page or not, the page and its creators have already fulfilled their purpose and met their goals. But they did not do it alone, we helped them do so. And that is what pains me.
I have not visited the offensive page in question and do not intend to. I had also not intended to help publicising that offensive page but by having to write this post that is exactly what I am doing. And that pains me. I am offended by the idea that page purports and the goals it seeks to achieve. So, why should I dignify it by a visit? Why should I publicise it? Yet, all of us — now me included, which is why writing this is uncomfortable —are doing exactly that. And that is what pains me.
Many of the emails I have received give me the link to that page and invite me to visit it so that ‘I can see for myself how offensive it is’. I do not need to do that. Yet, that is exactly what some of us have been doing by acting exactly as the creators of that page intended us to — acting as the promoters and publicists. And now having turned it into an international legal matter giving the attention seekers behind the page the exact thing they wanted: Attention.
But we have done more than that. With the Lahore High Court decision we have allowed the PTA and authorities another precedent and excuse to aggressively ‘manage’ the internet; something that can and will be misused in the future.
I have not been receiving emails from the proponents of that page. The only ones who seem to be noticing it are, us Muslims — and for some reason Pakistani Muslims more than any other. If we too had ignored the offensive page — as it deserves to be ignored —it would have gone the exact same way to oblivion as thousands of other sophomoric attempts at cheap attention seeking on the internet.
The only people who have turned this from nothingness into a huge issue, is us. I am sure that those who set up the page are jumping up and down and thanking us for making their page such a huge success. And that is what pains me.
Published in the Express Tribune, May 21st, 2010.
Reader Comments (19)
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I agree a thousand and one percent!Recommend
So true. We literally played into their hands. I’m sure those people must have had an awesome day, having fun drawing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. Because a major chunk of the Fb user population was unable to access FB today. They might have boycotted it otherwise, but now those who wouldn’t even have boycotted it have been forced to function without Fb. There are people I know who use Fb for remaining in touch with their friends, family and most importantly, business associates. Does the government not care what will happen to their businesses, and by extension, the country’s economy?Recommend
If only we could follow the teachings of Mohammad (PBUH), “Tolerance” have prevented us from falling into such a mess.Recommend
well who gains the most due to the blocking of internet….our beloved failed Government!! no tagging of links on fb and youtube of the stupidity the government makes everyday on TVRecommend
i agreeRecommend
Lord! You speak my mind here. And I have been saying this since the start of this “Fiasco”! I dont know when we muslims are going to learn! We work emotionally charged like zealots and play right into such trappings! When are we ever going to take lessons from such incidents!!
Thank you very much for writing this post. I share your pain!Recommend
I agree completely. You have drawn the exact picture. It is us who have made this into a huge issue.Recommend
Just to provide some more facts Last time I visited the page the number of members on that group were 350 land now it increased to 45000+,, and Yes it is PAINFUL, its not them who did the blasphemy its us.
Thank You for writing this column, I don’t know your name even, I haven;t read you before, but I was in Pain and was trying to let people know what crime we have done. I am thankful you are doing the same.Recommend
Great article.
As a Muslim, I am of course offended by any form of slander against the Holy Prophet (PBUH). However, I do not support this ban. Not only is it a question of my individual liberties-the court cannot tell me which websites I can or cannot frequent-but it hardly makes sense because by banning these websites you cannot pretend they don’t exist!! I feel sorry for those people who do not consider it important to respect other religions. But you or I cannot stop them because it is a free world. How is banning websites a solution to the problem? I would have simply ignored the competition altogether. Does anyone realize how much attention this competition has gotten BECAUSE of Muslims’ reactions? Muslims are unwittingly providing the creators of that page with greater publicity than they could have ever managed by themselves. I am wondering why courts in other Muslim countries have not reacted in the same way-oh right, because they have other things to attend to.
This action also has hypocrisy written all over it. What about other offensive things on the Internet? What about pornography? Is the government going to jump in and ‘protect’ the Pakistani people from everything offensive and vile on the big, bad Internet? A dangerous precedent is being set whereby the authorities are being given leeway to regulate the Internet.
As for those calling for a ban on the Internet outright-seriously? As if Pakistan is not already on a trajectory towards the Stone Age!
I also hope Facebook removes the page. Not because of the Lahore High Court ban but simply out of a common human courtesy that should be accorded to every member of every faith. But closing our eyes and shutting ourselves off from the Internet is not the solution.Recommend
I would ‘like’ your article if I could. Since I cannot I will have to settle for agreeing with you 100 per cent.Recommend
The campaign against Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H.) on the Facebook is undoubtedly a condemnable and deplorable act. Muslims all over the world feel hurt. However, the decision of Lahore High Court to ban the whole social networking for an indefinite period of time is also something, not very wise. Still more incomprehensible is the blocking of the Youtube. And now there’re rumors even about Twitter. These decisions just reflect our our sheer misunderstanding of the world wide web and an attitude of negativism, when it comes to the ground realities of the information technologies.Recommend
We Pakistanis have a lot to blame on us. I used to tell myself that the founder of our Country Pakistan would be extremely sad to see us in this state if he was alive today. The Nation he built for us after a strenuous period of hard work and what-not is almost in ruins today. And now, we have disappointed our Beloved Prophet (PBUH) too. I don’t wish to say anymore.
I completely agree with the views in this article.Recommend
you lot mising the point so what if it has turned it into an international issue ?
same thing happen on 9/11 but as a result more non muslims reverted to islam and i’m sure this is going to repeat again after this event more non muslims will revert to islam. I really do admire
the action taken by high court and PTA as well.Though as a muslim we have many shortcommings but we should strogly condemn and protest against such cowardly acts.Whosoever try to do it should be banned forever.We can live without facebook and Youtube but will not tolerate such acts.
here is the link about non muslims reverted after 9/11 and now islam is the fastest growing religion !!
http://searchoftruth.com/videos/276/reverts-from-all-around-the-worldRecommend
Bulls eye! Thank you for expressing my feelings in words.Recommend
Pages like Such where always made and some of the members reported and they were removed in a day or two
Maybe you missed one thing in all of the mails u recieved it was request to report them and ppl were doing all this to get tht page deleted but many were surprised when page was still there and that was the reason of resentment that turned into anger against fakebookRecommend
its so good to see we still hv educated ppl with brains who know how to react to certain eventsRecommend
Thank you for writing this.. This is exactly what i’ve been feeling.. I saw the page weeks ago.. and even thought i found it offensive.. i chose not to react to it.. didn’t want to give those people any satisfaction.. but we as a nation have never used our minds but only our emotions and impulse.. thats why we have had morons as rulers..Recommend
This is an excellent piece and needs to be distributed widely. Glad you picked it from Adil Najam’s blog. But I think you missed out the best part of the piece, where he asks “WHAT WOULD MUHAMMAD DO?”
http://pakistaniat.com/2010/05/19/facebook-draw-muhammad/Recommend
This is a brilliant piece. Dr. Najam is very right, it is we ourselves who have made this such a big issue otherwise no one would even have noticed. Now all they notice is that Muslims are volatile and violent.
I often think that if we had ignored Salman Rushdie, the poor guy would have been a no-name author today. And would actually have been poor. Yet, it is we Muslims who made him into such a big name and a rich author.
We are our own biggest enemies.Recommend