Apropos news item on the official announcement to keep YouTube indefinitely blocked in Pakistan. If you are not surprised to see ex-Chief Justice of Lahore High Court defending a convicted murderer, Mumtaz Qadri, who shot dead then-Governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, Jan 2011, in presence of dozens of eye witnesses, then you should just ignore the Pakistani government’s recent announcement on YouTube ban. Ex-Chief Justice is defending Qadri out of his religious zeal hoping its reward in afterlife, perhaps is the same stand of government on the future of this video-sharing website in Pakistan.
YouTube was banned in the country in 2012 as it was blamed to have uploaded blasphemous contents on its pages. Are government officials not aware that whatever they want to conceal is already available through proxies and other video-sharing websites? Why not ban the internet altogether? I just fail to understand why this fuss on YouTube – all those who want to access objectionable material may do it any time at their will, then why punish the general public including students? For how long we would like to live in a dark ages?
Is our faith so weak and vulnerable that YouTube material will take its viewers away from the religion? Instead of sticking our heads in the sand and waiting for the storm to go somewhere else, why don’t we defend ourselves against all such propaganda against our religion? By choosing to close our eyes, we are making the new generation more vulnerable to get trapped by these sites as these young minds will have no alternate narrative against what’s being said about their religion. Why don’t our religious scholars come forward and offer an alternate narrative which could be uploaded on the net to counter the existing blasphemous contents?
Just hoping to get rewarded in the afterlife or to receive religious parties’ applause (and vote) in this world, we are becoming laughing stock even among Muslim countries wherein no such blanket-ban on YouTube exists. Let the army of IT officials and ministers enjoy the perks and uncensored access to net in their offices; who cares for the general public?
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail, Saudi Arabia
