When in doubt - blame South Park

It "hurts our religious feelings" when people talk smack about our Prophet. Not that I knew I had religious feelings that were distinct from... well, just "feelings". Mostly, I liked how one news article spoke of the "monster" that created the Facebook page that invites the world at large to draw cartoons of the Prophet. That is what brought the Lahore High Court to tears and made them pass the order to restrict that page, then the whole of Facebook (because it is innately the work of Lucifer himself), and then of course, Youtube (possibly because too many people were checking out the new Shakira video).

To enlighten my friends that were wondering why I haven't posted seventy news articles to my Facebook wall since the morning, I shared with some a news article explaining the ban on Facebook and the lawsuit that began it all. Felipe called this news piece the most "awesomely badly written news article". (We don't have a problem coming off as idiots at all.) There's a legal premise behind all this. Under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes, 2007 - Section 29 and 30, Zuckerburg and his entire team could be fined a grand total of *drum roll* $2,300! Yes sir, that and they could be made to serve a sentence of up to two years. Territorial boundaries, you say? Pft - if Facebook is far-reaching, so are the arms of justice of Pakistan (inspired by the Bollywood "Kanoon key haath bohot lambey hotay hain, Judge Sahab" dialogue, of course).

So, all day Thursday my friends and I exchanged notes on what else has been banned by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (certain Wikipedia pages are also inaccessible) - and when our internet slowed down or just died, as it often does, we were all too quick to jump to conclusions of the PTA restricting everything. We love spreading rumors.

In the words of the cartoonist Nikahang Kowsar, "I believe we have the right to offend, but when offense is seen as an 'insult', it might be a bad time to draw an offensive cartoon." Agreed. Its a stupid idea to rile up the "religious emotions" of a certain group, but equally silly is the fact that we got so riled. Hina said "Its gone too far." She's one of my friends that said she wanted to boycott Facebook for that one day that the cartooning contest was being held. Agreeing that it was silly, she insisted that she'd rather do something about it peacefully than do nothing.

But how far is too far? Is it not "far" enough that we're wanting to block that page alone from Facebook, which translated into blocking all of Facebook and then Youtube? CNN analysts said that the reason Youtube was blocked was as a "preemptive" measure - people will make videos of the contest and of the cartoon's they've created and post them to Youtube, the Pakistani government, although not saying it out loud, was trying to preempt just that. Youtube is just one of the pages our government deems "sacrilege". Thankfully, the Wikipedia page defining the word has not blocked - yet (although numerous others have been) and I was able to look it up. It says "injurious treatment of a sacred object".

Muslims believe that faith begins from within and that though we believe in God, unseen, He is out there and watching us and protecting us and testing us. Similarly, although we haven't seen the Prophet, we believe in him and follow his teachings. What object, again, is it that these people are treating injuriously? I thought the whole concept of Islam was not to objectify that which we revere? I'm a little confused.

Personally, I'm a little relieved that I'm not compelled to update my status on Facebook in search for affirmation. So, I can be "enjoying my cup a joe" without having to tell the world about it - and it really will taste just as good. I don't know how we got so pulled into this. I was suffering withdrawal from incessantly posting news articles to my wall, but now I just spam my friends' inboxes. I know most of my friends are doing okay without Facebook - even those whose life and job depend on their Mafia Wars scores. But then we have various student bodies carrying out rallies and chanting "Death to Facebook!" I really wish we'd come up with a new slogan already.

And to think, all this of a South Park episode.

Sinister Sarcasm

This was a picture sent to me in one of those forwards; the ones that frantically spread like the proverbial wildfire we all hate. The minute I saw it I knew it was doctored, but then something inside me wanted to make sure. It's pretty obvious that this could not be real; that the ACLU would be all over it if it were, but, something was still very unsettling about this image. I, like any other schmuck, forwarded this to a bunch of my friends - those people you know won't judge you stupid for sending this out and will tell you what they think of it; while not letting their own political/ideological beliefs be fanatically dethroned.

Farooq, endowed with the super-abilities to articulate his unadulterated thoughts on politics and policies said: "I'm also positive it's doctored, but its still very sinister. And by sinister, I mean the effect the creators are going for is definitely achieved. It's smart of them not to pick some seedy, shady, scruffy looking desi. They pick a fairly harmless looking guy and, by doing so, encourage you to question the intentions of people falling OUTSIDE the stereotype of potentially dangerous Muslims. Check out the way he is looking at you in the poster. Taken by itself, it'd just be a regular boring picture. But armed with all the rhetoric underneath, its capable of being a little creepy. Its basically shouting out 'trust no one'."

Naiara, with her undying patience and incessant requirement to be politically correct said (after assuring me that she, as a frequent MTA user, knew this to be a fake): "One possible explanation is that someone might have designed it with the objective of drawing attention to the potential racial profiling interpretation that the original ad might have on certain prong minds (the original add says: "if you see something, say something" and has the picture of an abandoned item under the metro seat). It can even be the case that someone has been the victim of racial profiling based on the ad, but I have never read or heard of it happening."

I think that this forward was a little bit of both; sinister yet sarcastic. In a time like this when something as meaningless as a cartoon sketch or a South Park episode can get us frazzled (not that I think such frazzlement is warranted), someone thought it in their malicious right to create and spread something like this. Mind you, desi's are innately stupid so we'll buy this junk at first sight. I just hope it doesn't get in the hands of someone like Zaid Hamid (or maybe his zombie-esque minions are the ones that created it) so that they can use it to accent their beliefs that the world is out to get them. "Them": not just Muslims, but Pakistani-Muslims because they're the worst kind.

It could also be something intended to be sarcastic pun at the way brown-folk in general are being treated (considering that most Pakistani's are now being driven to claim Indian heritage, uf, sacrilege). Either way, its uncalled for because it's messing with my head. I was left there thinking "maybe?" and I've got plenty else to be thinking about right now. It just goes to show the sad state of affairs of the world at large (and the lack of caffeine in my system at that hour), when we'll believe (or at least question/ponder, if even for an instant) the legitimacy of something as absurd as this. I question my intelligence before I do anyone else, but it just leaves me thinking, if I could for a second be "doubeyew-tee-eff" about this, could someone, not educated and unaware of civil liberties and their importance in the Land of the Free, not take this to be real?

Sigh. What have we come to?

"I run to the Rock, please hide me..."

"You know what's amazing?"

Felipe messaged me yesterday and asked me just that. "The moon today looks exactly like the earth does in the famous picture taken from teh moon of the earth-rise. Quite amazing..."

It reminded me what someone once said, or maybe I read it somewhere. Warning: it could very well have been a sappy chick-flick. They said that the moon is the same, you might look at it at different times and from different angles, but its the same moon, world-over. Felipe once said that it gives him peace knowing that we're all connected in some way.

I miss you, Dude.

This is one of his masterpieces (therefore copyrighted to him - I just took liberties).