Adil Najam
This is a painful post to write.
Ideally I would have preferred not to have had to write this post. But I have over 300 messages in my in-box of people fussing 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. And that is what pains me.
I hope that Facebook administration will remove the page. Not because of any “banning” movement and not because of the Lahore High Court. Just because the page and the idea behind the page 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 – when you know that (a) those feelings will be hurt and (b) when hurting those feelings is really the only purpose of doing what you are doing – is inhuman, cruel, and clearly offensive. If Facebook does not recognize that, then it knows nothing either about “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, met their goals. And it is we ourselves who have 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 publicizing 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 publicize it? Why should I give it the attention it was created to seek. 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 we have been doing. We have been acting exactly as the creators of that page intended us to. Acting as the promoters and publicists of that page. 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 us is 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. Instead we have now turned it into an international incident and given it far more limelight than it ever deserved.
Let’s think about it, what did the creators of the offensive page want to do when they set it up? First, they sought attention, and hits, and notoriety in a world where attention is too easily confused with fame. Second, they wanted to ridicule Muslims by the reaction they excepted from this. If you think of it, irrespective of whether Facebook removes the site or keeps it, the organizers of the page have achieved their goal. Well beyond what they expected. Now every other Islamophobic nutcase will get new ideas about how to have his little 10 minutes of fame spewing bigotry and hatred against Muslims.
But more importantly, they simply could not have done this without us. 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.
I am also pained by the sacrilege of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that this entire drama signifies. As pained as anyone else, and as pained as I would have been at the sacrilege of any other Prophet or religion. But unlike for many others, that pain is neither reduced nor resolved by protesting against Facebook. For me, the antidote to that pain is in the teaching of the Prophet (PBUH) themselves. What would the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) have done in such a situation.
The one thing I am absolutely positive of, is that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) would not have done what we are doing now: making an international public spectacle of ourselves. Most likely he would have just walked away and ignored (the ‘look the other way when someone throws garbage at you’ model), he might have negotiated with Facebook on the basis of their own stated rules (the Hudabia model), he might have reasoned with detractors (the discourse and discussion model). Nearly certainly Muhammad (PBUH) would have handled it with grace, with composure, and maybe even with a touch of good humor. Most importantly, the Prophet (PBUH) would have kept focusing on his own actions and proving his point with his own deeds rather than with slogans, banners and naara-baazi.
One thing that globalisation (and facebook) shows us is the chasm between cultures.
While your article speaks of a phobia of islam and bigotry (and those things certainly exist), the cultural divide really isn’t about anti-islamists vs. islam. It’s about the inherent problem of a post-religious culture (the west) co-existing with a religious culture.
The reality is that secular westerners (either as individuals or as governments) do not recognise blasphemy of any religion as a crime. The vast majority of westerners do not recognise blasphemy to be wrong. Indeed, there is a philosophical tradition of critical thinking of religion (principally against christianity) dating back to the 18th century which has become integrated into the western psyche.
This post-religious thinking doesn’t reflect a hatred of islam specifically. It’s simply secular.
If another religion (say judaism or christianity) were to become as sensitive or hostile to western secularism as some muslims currently are, the focus of secular critique would shift to that religion.
Part of your article appears to recognise this where you argue that if believers would simply ignore the taunts, the taunts would cease to exist. That’s probably right. At a minimum, they would cease to be effectual–by definition.
Anyone with access to mainstream western television can see how secular western culture has become since the 18th century. It’s not islamophobic; it’s religiophobic.
Where one side sees bigots and blasphemers, the other side doesn’t even know know what blasphemy is, as the concept no longer has any legal or moral meaning to them (and hasn’t for a couple of centuries).
One of your readers argues that the only way correct this cultural divide is for westerners respect the prophet just as muslims respect jesus and moses. But this argument assumes that secular western culture respects the religions of jesus and moses. While these religions certainly exist with millions of western adherents, the western societies and legal systems in which they operate do not protect them against their blasphemers.
It’s actually just the opposite…it is the secular blasphemers whose speech is protected by western secular law, not the hurt feelings of jews or christians.
So we have the inherent conflict that occurs when one culture places the right to criticise religion (actually the right to criticise anything and anyone) above respect for religion, and another culture places respect of its religion above freedom of speech.
In the west, the intensity of this conflict has largely dissipated, as jews and christians have become accustomed to living in a secular society which protects their right to worship, but also protects the rights of infidels and blasphemers.
Facebook ban lifted by Lahore High Court. Fro Express Tribune:
A timely message indeed by Adil Najam.
Banning sites doesn’t serve any purpose, neither do the large scale demonstrations on streets- burning tyres- forcing shopkeepers to shut down or to attack foreign owned banks , network cos. and other joint venture / multinational business concerns.
We demonstrated against the caricatures by a Danish cartoonist but the same caricature is still on display on every Google image page once you enter the word ‘images, caricatures’. Now you can’t ban Google because it is such a powerful search engine that provides among other things information which all of us need in our day to day life. To my mind tools of the cyber world are like any other tool we use almost every day. We use a knife to cut up vegetables but the same knife can be used also to cut up throats of human beings. That’s the negative side of using that tool but you can’t ban a knife just because it is also being used by criminals to take human lives.
So what we need is our own attitude towards the teachings and actions of the holy prophet. I think had the prophet been here amongst us, he would never have condoned the actions of these so called ‘prophet lovers’ for he was the man who pardoned even his arch enemies, he was the man who blessed even those persons who had subjected him to an extreme type of humiliation, pains and tortures. Unfortunately our actions are exactly opposite to what the prophet would have ordained under such circumstances [although his teachings are even today the most appropriate guidelines to follow].
In this age of information when propaganda has turned into a high valued marketing tool [interestingly negative propaganda has many a times proved to bring positive results for the product or service itself], through our stupidity we have given an out of bound feedback to that particular page on facebook and this is exactly what the publisher of that page would have wished to.
P. S.
Thanks humanoid. You have very aptly said it too: “Blaming west is senseless; they have achieved something that we didn’t. We need to respect our opponents and need to elevate ourselves to a level that they think twice before indulging into such acts”.
Nayyar Hashmey
http://wondersofpakistan.wordpress.com/
Is it true that Facebook is now back on in Pakistan?
@ Adil Najam’s article… Adil I think you don’t have enough knowledge about Islam… Otherwise you wouldn’t have written this article… Secondly, I do agree that the way we protest is wrong.. but blocking the site wasn’t wrong.. Non muslims should know that making fun of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) won’t be ignored… I hope one day the muslim ummah will unite so that non-muslims would think twice before doing such hideous acts. And please don’t compare us with the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.), it is our duty to protect Prophet Muhammad’s (s.a.w.) name. We should make the non muslims understand how we respect Prophet Isa (a.s) Jesus, and how we respect Prophet Moosa (a.s) Moses, and in the same way they should respect our last prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.)
Well this issue has the same dimensions as Salman Rushdie’s book. Being an emotional lot, we showed a reaction the west wanted us to show. Do you think they care? they will just show the images of us burning effigies and American flags. Rest of us will still be watching Hollywood, Bollywood, bribing and what not! That is all alright, but facebook cannot do this and Salman should not have done that!
Being in avid reader, i read a renowned British writer denouncing Salman that he was not a writer worthy of any praise but got famous by ridiculous reactions by Muslims. Imagine if the world had not reacted to Salman Rushdie’s book, would people have given a hoot about him? He wanted quick fame, and he got it! West gave him protection (remember the phrase West is west and east is east and ..) like west has given protection to Altaf’s Nawaz’s Khar’s and so on! Whom we all vote!
I visited the page on facebook, had 13000 pictures, out of which 10000 would have come because of our senseless reaction. If they had done that, and not a single muslim had visited the site nor had left a comment, tell me, what would have happened? Nothing! they would have failed in their attempt to arouse all of us. Sanity is what left us!
Once in school a teacher of mine told us all that there are 2 ways to reach glory, a short quick way and the other longer, hard and time consuming path. He gave an example that of a person goes nude in a bazaar, he will be the talk of the town, instant fame! While if the same guy wants to get to the same spot via hard work, legitimate process, it will take him many years. He said that’s what Rushdie did and we were all his accomplices in his fame.
Blaming west is senseless, they have achieved something that we did not. Always respect a worthy opponent and the need is to upgrade our selves to a level that they stop doing so!
i have been trying to post a comment here but always get a reply that it seems its duplicate. i even cannot view my comments posted here too. Can you please guide me regarding this
Dear All,
Just one thing I just like to say for the creator of this topics or those who are behind this.
Always it happens like this:
They are shouting for human rights: They are breaking ALL over the world, Afganistan, Iraq and so on.
They are shouting for freedom of life: But they just simply break it by offensive topics like this one.
And they are the people who made “Guantamo”.
I must no HATE them but I HATE their word vs works.
Thanks.