The latest from the Facebook

As reported in Herald Sun (Australia), "Facebook is disappointed at being blocked in Pakistan over a contest that encourages users to post caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed and may make the offending page inaccessible to users there."

Either it has been reported that way or it is really so lame. "We are very disappointed with the Pakistani courts' decision to block Facebook without warning, and suspect our users there feel the same way," Facebook said according to the news report. Maybe some users feel that way but most I know are appluading the ban (a good place to get an idea of general reaction is one of the recent posts on Teethmaestro Blog).

I also happily accepted the ban at least till May 31 but there is something about this recent statement from Facebook which makes me feel I can go along with a permanent ban. The Facebook representative is reported to have said, "We will take appropriate action, which may include making this content inaccessible to users in Pakistan."

Wow! So it is wrong if my own government prevents me and it is right when Facebook does the same! If it's going to be someone else's decision how I access the Internet then I prefer it to be my government rather than Facebook.

Facebook still did not agree to remove that "offensive page". It is simply offering, oh so graciously, to make the page invisible for Pakistani users. Worse than having that page in the first place, actually, because it means that the page stays there but only Pakistani users become unable to notice it. That is a huge concession Facebook people are asking for themselves and yet making it sound as if they are offering a favor.

Something else in the Facebook statement is even more dubious. Reportedly the statement from the Palo Alto, California-based social network said, "We want Facebook to be a place where people can openly discuss issues and express their views, while respecting the rights and feelings of others..." (Sounds like Ms. Anne Patterson announcing before the world that the US authorities have "no definitive knowledge" about Dr. Aafia Siddiqui's children). The statement goes on to say, "We don't typically take down content, groups or pages that speak out against countries, religions, political entities, or ideas."

But sometimes they do. Not very long ago they took down the page of People's Resistance, a broad-based Pakistani group working for the restoration of judiciary in Pakistan. Facebook removed that page (not just making it inaccessible in Pakistan). It also sent warnings to the group. (Read about this on Teeth Maestro).

So, Facebook does not "typically" do that but "a-typically" it removed a page that was calling for peaceful restoration of judiciary in Pakistan. That stupid contest of May 20 is a big deal but restoration of judiciary in Pakistan is a trivial matter that Facebook team did not even mention it while making these blanket statements?

Facebook might be disappointed with the Pakistani courts' decision but many Pakistani users were disappointed with Facebook already, and after reading this statement I feel: social media network, my foot! Is this the kind of people I would like to trust for my social media networking?

Understanding Freedom of Expression

One of the regular visitors to this blog has asked me a question that must also be in the minds of many others:

"I get stuck- when non-Muslims say that a cartoon is just a cartoon, and why are you taking it seriously. You can draw images of us and also of our gods.To them i reply that Islam teaches love and respect to all religions and prophets. But... they keep saying that draw our cartoons and we will publish them."

No, they will not. Ask them to read the laws regarding libel and patents that exist in their country. Unrestrained freedom of expression has neither been advocated nor found desirable anywhere in the world so far. There are always certain limits even in US. The issue is how to define those limits.

Here are a few examples:

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  Facebook itself deleted the official page of People's Resistance, a broad-based Pakistani group formed for a peaceful struggle for restoration of judiciary sometime ago. I am told that not only their page got deleted but they even received warnings from FB administration just because they had invited for an event involving protest in favor of judiciary in their own country. Read more on Teeth Maestro
• 
  
  When Satanic Verses of Salman Rushdie was published, Pakistani filmmaker Shehzad Gul responded by making a film called International Guerillay that depicted Salman Rushdie in a negative manner. While Rushdie's book had been allowed to circulate in UK, the film was initially banned because Rushdie could have filed libel suite not only against the film producer but also against the British authorities! Read details on Wikipedia.
• 
  
  Recently, there were news about Megan Fox taking some legal action against an advertisement of baby milk that used just her first name "Megan" in a funny conversation (you can search it on the Internet).

So, the freedom of expression does not mean that everything goes. Now, it may be that most people in the West do not mind if their prophets and deities are mocked, so it has been allowed in their law. Many people in the East seem to mind that (and it's not just a Muslim thing: Christians sought ban on Da Vinci Code movie and Hindus protested against the exhibition of paintings by M F Husain disrespecting Hindu goddesses.

Why people in the West are more tolerant about ridiculing religion (when they are not equally tolerant about defamation of living citizens) than in the East may be because whenever a civilization is going down it shows these kinds of symptoms - it was the same with ancient Rome, the later Mughal Empire and so on. 

So, the bottom line is that while the contemporary Western societies seem to be in favor of protecting only their living citizens through laws against defamation, most Eastern societies today seem to be extending that cover to religious personalities long dead also. Again, this is not an essentially East-West thing: Western societies in their better days were also like this, for instance about 150 years ago when "the sun did not set on their empire"!

In this situation, what we all need to learn - the West as much as the East - is that in a world that has practically become a global village, one cannot go on behaving like the village idiot anymore. We need to show some ettiquettes.

Freedom of expression and genuine artists

So you think that a great poet or artist never compromises and pays very little attention to commercial considerations? Factual evidence suggests otherwise. Consider three of the greatest poets of all times.

With one possible exception, William Shakespeare wrote all his plays for the box office. In his own lifetime and for more than a century after his death, he was not as much recognized for being a masterful playwright as he was for being a successful one. His colleagues who compiled the authoritative collection of his plays after his death complied with the latest censorship policies: several expressions from Shakespeare's work were struck out and many of those have never reached us. Still, that has not prevented us from appreciating the genius of Shakespeare..  

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, on the suggestion of his publisher, self-censored several words and phrases in his greatest masterpiece Faust ("very characteristically", accordng to the scholar Walter Kaufmann).

Almost all the greater Urdu poems of Dr. Sir Muhammad Iqbal were written with the aim of collecting money for orphanages and other philanthropic causes - yes, these include 'Tasveer-i-Dard',  'Shikwah', 'Jawab-i-Shikwah', 'Khizr-i-Rah' and 'Tulu-i-Islam'. Moreover, when certain portions of Iqbal's first Persian book were severely criticized by his audience, he happily deleted them from the next edition. His famous prayer was, "May my pen never hurt any heart...":

مری زبان قلم سے کسی کا دل نہ دُکھے

گلہ کسی سے نہ ہو زیرِ آسماں مجکو 

These artists used the feedback of their societies as reality check. We know what they - Shakespeare, Goethe and Iqbal - have offered to humanity. As compared to them, the other kind of artists who whine about freedom of expression and regard petty egoism to be more important than love, what have they offered? Please ask this question to yourself.

Also, if you have the time, do a simple exercise. Pick up the work of a typical "high culture" artist who claims to be oh so far above his or her society. Then scan the work for a single theme: hypocrite. I promise that you shall be amazed at what comes up (some examples can be offered on this blog if readers are interested).