Are we repeating the History?

Facebook, some pages of Wikipedia, YouTube and some other online media is banned in Pakistan from Wednesday May 19, 2010. Reason of banning all these online media is showing some insulting caricatures of Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon him). Muslims are facing this issue on and off from 2006 when some newspapers of Denmark and Norway published some insulting depictions of Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon him).

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority banned Facebook and many websites for publishing till May 31, 2010(as per media reporting). I strongly condemn all those who do such humiliating activities on the name of ‘Freedom of speech’ and ‘Freedom of Expression’. But I do not support the idea of banning Facebook and other online media at all. Banning means we have locked up ourselves in our houses and allowing others to do no matter what they want to do with our religion and our Prophet (peace be upon him).

It seems to me that we are repeating the mistake we, the Muslims of Indo-Pak Subcontinent, had done before. What we did? Just because we hated English people, we stopped our children from going to schools. Now, we have stopped ourselves to protest against misuse of freedom of expression and freedom of speech. We have locked up ourselves with our boundaries. If the banning is stopping something, it is stopping the youth of Pakistan being a part of the global village.

Facebook, an online social network, use to connect people all around the world. It is use as medium of sharing things, information, pictures, interests, tips, techniques and many more. There are many pages on Facebook that supports Islam, support idea of one the only Almighty, support Muslim Unity, support unity in Pakistan and many other good ideas and good causes and just one, just a single page that insults Islam (and Christianity as well). The page is name as ‘Everybody Draw Mohammad Day’. This page has some 39000 fans when last time I visited it. It has many shameful images of God, Prophet (Peace be upon him), Muslims and Jesus as well.

YouTube, largest video database available on internet, has so many interesting, informative and real videos. I agreed, there are some videos that go against Islam, but what about those databases which is exponential larger in number and goes in favor of one Almighty and Islam. The collection of tafseer-e-Quran (translation and explanation of Quran) available on YouTube is so far biggest one I ever find as compare to any other website. It is satisfying to ban those video which are on the whole showing blasphemous but banning the whole websites are simply illogical.

Are we not brave enough to face the reality in the way it is? This is not the time to get locked within boundaries. This is a fight of thoughts and words are weapons, social networks are our medium. If we really want to stop them we have to tell them and pursue them to idea of Islam, in this regard banning could not help in at least.

By means of this post I request PTA and all concern authorities to not the repeat the history by putting such bans. These type of bans are not improving the picture of Islam neither of Pakistan. these bans are just stopping the Pakistani youth to fight for the honor of their religion. We are already suffering because of one mistake made in history. Kindly do not repeat that mistake.