The distribution of hate

Social MediaSocial media, over the years have become (somewhat) integral in our lives. Hence, it was a matter of time before our emotions became digital too. Social media provides means of mass information sharing, here a message can reach millions in mere seconds, it is playing a vital role in shaping point of views of people who are linked with social media.

Of all the social media portals, facebook have been in focus for spreading hatred and religious bias, while it is also responsible (some say) for bringing the uprising in the Arab countries. Last year, facebook was under heavy criticism from the Muslims for an event that called for the people to depict the Prophet (pbuh). Many people left facebook, some deactivated their accounts and it was banned in certain countries (for a certain time). Many users protested over facebook, and shared an ‘anti-depiction event’ on their facebook walls and with friends. The same thing (with a twist) is going on again, some ignorant has made a page which is defaming the holy places of Muslims and Muslims are spreading the ‘anti cause’ everywhere on facebook, demanding the page to be removed.

ImageWhile I do not judge the intensity of anyone’s faith and love for their religion, I think these ‘religious e-warriors’ fail to understand that they are the prime bearer of the message the ‘anti-Islamic entity’ wants to send out. Many of the Muslim users were unaware of this ‘anti-Islamic page’  until one of their deeply Muslim friend shared the message of protest and invitation to join the cause with them (same was the case with the previous anti-Islamic facebook event). If the few Muslims who saw this earlier would have had succeeded in ignoring it, they would have stopped this menace from spreading in the first place.

I am yet to see any of my non-Muslim friends spreading that anti-Islamic agenda for which our Muslim friends are protesting and asking other Muslims to join in. These people who are spreading this protest fail to understand that by spreading this protest, they are actually bringing more attention to an otherwise stupid, baseless, lame and an ignorant facebook stunt, directed towards enraging Muslims and mess with their emotions. By sharing the ‘Islamic cause’ is more of a damage rather than service to Islam.

The problem with Muslims (specially those who are familiar with the use of internet), in my opinion, is that they fail to ignore things which are insignificant and successfully ignore something thing which can help them stand united against these menaces which pop up every once in a while. The only way one can fight such menace is by ignoring its existence. It is not hurting Islam in any way, nor it will hurt us if we ignore it. But if Muslims keep spreading the word about it, then it is we who are helping this otherwise insignificant menace, to spread across the medium.

P.S: The purpose of writing this post is not to spread this menace (since it has already spread on facebook), rather ask my fellow Muslims to stop falling for this scam again and again.

Blunt hypocrisy

Ban on FB by LHCThe Lahore High Court, on the 19th ordered the ministry of information technology to block access to all websites spreading religious hatred. It seems like a flashback from not so long ago, when the same institution banned Facebook and Google along with various other websites, claiming it was spreading religious intolerance. The infamous competition of drawing pictures of the Prophet (peace be upon him) is provided as an argument for the ban.

One might understand the judgement since it was directed towards protecting the feelings and emotions of the majority in Pakistan. But the simple facts are these:
The majority of Pakistan is illiterate, out of the minority that is literate, majority don’t have (or can’t afford) computers, out of those who have personal computers, majority don’t even care about
the stupid competition.

Besides, since when did Pakistan became the world leader in religious tolerance? Just a few days earlier, Pakistan was counted among the top 10 countries / regimes, which failed to protect religious freedom. Go further back this month, innocent people were killed and injured in the name of ‘protecting religious emotions’. In a country, where there are many laws, tailored purely to discriminate and suppress minorities that belong to other religions, Justice Azmat Saeed of the Lahore High Court deemed some websites on the internet (which aren’t made for this purpose) harmful and intolerant.

Not so long ago, in the same province, flyers were distributed calling upon an average Muslim to kill two Christian brothers, then banners put up which suggested it is ‘must’ to kill someone belonging to Ahmadiyya sect, even flyers were distributed citing names of those people in Faisalabad, along with the message ‘liable to be killed’. I wonder how any of these incident went unnoticed by the Lahore High Court or even the Supreme Court of Pakistan. How is banning a few websites, which were used by some mischief creators for their own purposes, an honest decision, when all of the above mentioned ‘crap’ is being done every day under the nose of the court?

Let us for a minute look away from this hypocrisy, Pakistan and India have been the hub of software engineering for over a decade now, the majority of software engineers around the world is desi (from Pakistan and India). Since the arrival of social media portals, innovations have cropped up in this field and many now depend on platforms like Facebook, Google, Orkut etc. for their living. Banning these websites will not provide good results for these people. In-fact, many of these projects have been recalled already.

The sensible thing to do here is to reconsider this matter on a broader scale, not just religiously but also considering the economic effect of these actions. Though in my view, this decision will never be an honest one, considering what has been going on in Pakistan (in terms of religious tolerance) for over five decades.

Ignorance is a bliss

“No Muslim should attend the funeral or even try to pray for Salmaan Taseer,” a statement from Jamaate Ahle Sunnat Pakistan, one of the biggest organisations of the Barelvi, representing 500 religious scholars, said. “We pay rich tributes and salute the bravery, valour and faith of Mumtaz Qadri.”

“The supporter is as equally guilty as one who committed blasphemy,” the Jamaate Ahle Sunnat Pakistan statement said. It added that adding politicians, the media and others should learn “a lesson from the exemplary death”.
Read the whole story in Guardian.

I must say I am not surprised at this reaction from the (self-proclaimed) ‘religious’ scholars in Pakistan. Some of the (slightly more) educated are also behind Qadri’s actions, there is a facebook page paying tribute to this barbarian. I wonder how many of them actually understand Qura’an as most of the people ‘endorsing’ Qadri on Facebook are undergraduates. The interesting fact though is that many of them are foreigners ‘not’ Pakistanis. Goes to show Mullah has been at work outside of Pakistan too.

All of this, in defense of the draconian and controversial blasphemy law which has nothing to do with Islam in the first place! None of these (so-called) scholars or their followers have researched or consulted others on the issue of blasphemy. Those scholars who oppose the implementation of this law are silenced and blamed for apostasy. The first lesson of Islam is tolerance, but situations like these cause many other Muslims to re-evaluate their religion, but there is no other source for them except for these intolerant clerics. Since when Islam became so complicated? Every cleric is a vatican on Islam in his own domain and the ignorant masses have no where else to go besides them for ‘religious teachings’.

It is time for all of us, to make a choice. Either embrace the religion of sword, or come towards the religion of peace. Why is it that we cannot learn religion ourselves? God has given us brains, which is more open to facts than those of the clerics. Religion is something that is an individual’s attribute, it has no impositions, especially Islam.

The mullah has his own agenda, he has distorted Islam to gain power both politically and psychologically over the masses, cashing in on the most fundamental attribute of life, religion. The apprenticed masses blindly follow the word of the mullah, they are completely unaware of the fact that what they think is Islam, in reality it is anything but Islam. They are unaware of the fact that their actions are hurting the cause of Islam and strengthening its enemies. But I guess for them, ‘ignorance is a bliss’.

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