Why I do not support banning Facebook
Posted by: sufiaz on: May 23, 2010
Down with Facebook?
It has now been four days since the Pakistani government banned Facebook and three since they banned Youtube for so-called “blasphemous” content. As I was searching for material on the Internet to write this blog, it turned out that a great many pages on WordPress, Wikipedia and Google too are blocked. Call me “irreverant”, call me an “infidel”, call me whatever you want – I still maintain that banning all these pages is not the answer, and that this stance does not make me any less of a Muslim.
Look at this particular boycott: What did it achieve? Did Facebook delete the offensive pages? No. Did Facebook suffer the economic losses that PTA claimed it would suffer – the purported logic behind the ban? No. I have yet to come across a news report on BBC, CNN, Businessweek or the Economist referring to this “loss”. If a company with a subscriber base as large as Facebook, is truly facing the magnitude of losses that the Pakistani media claims it is facing, surely it would be mentioned in these papers.
In the same thread, if a company, any company, faces millions of Euros of losses, especially in combination with bad publicity, it would have immediately taken action, – which Facebook has not done. No apology has been issued on the part of Facebook and the pages are exactly where they were. Molly Norris may have issued an apology and dissociated herself from the controversy and “Draw Mohammad day” may have been called off, but the grim reminders still remain. In the end, the only parties actually facing losses are the ISP’s in Pakistan whose traffic has been reduced by a good 25%.
As Mr. Adnan Ali has pointed out here, which I am quoting verbatim since he has expressed it so beautifully: Boycotting something like this will only give it more life. Imagine all the status messages that have the link of the page. We are actually spreading this virus rather than burying it. Add to this, other pages and groups created by Muslims which highlight the content of the blasphemous page. This is ridiculous behavior. A boycott is not the answer to any problem. It is only the easy way out. Disassociation from an activity may give us a lot of personal satisfaction, but in the end it achieves nothing. The problem remains where it is.
And why is it that we react so strongly when our religion is ridiculed, our Holy Book is laughed at and our Prophet is insulted? We are so quick to claim that our religion is one of peace and tolerance, yet by reacting so emotionally and irrationally to an “attack” against Islam, what have we proved to the world? That we have forgotten what our Prophet taught us. Are we the followers of the same Prophet who did not curse those who did not believe? The Muslims of Pakistan did not for one minute think about how he dealt with those who mocked him. Instead we resorted to violence, protests, abuse and name calling – the very things Allah and His Prophet told us not to do. We have unfortunately only shown that we cannot follow his example and the teachings of our Holy Book – and yet at the same time we claim that we love and respect Allah and His Prophet still. Shame on us.
2 Responses to "Why I do not support banning Facebook"
[...] had discussed the futility of the ban imposed last year in an earlier blog post, and I believe that this year too a ban will be just as futile. The same arguments apply this year [...]
May 25, 2010 at 1:53 am
Well thought out critique of the attempts to bully we unbelievers into having the same reverence fro you prophet as the most devout Muslims have. The problem is that in western culture there is a tradition of mockery of religion that goes to the very heart of our culture. And there is an obstinate refusal to be bullied.
Respect is a two way street and until that is appreciated by the vociferously devout there will not be peace between Muslims and the western culture that dominates teh world.
The most important thing for us all to have is a sense of humour and I just can’t accept that any deity would not want his followers to be dour and serious all of teh time.