I was going through my regular G-reading when this news took my attention. Its about a blogger being Jailed for undermining the prestige of the state and weakening national morale. It is not the first time that I have heard such a news. I then did a minor search for such cases over the internet and what I find is astonishing. Russia, Bahrain, Malaysia you name it! all are in the list.
We say what we want to and write what we want to and we feel like it is our right to be able to speak up our minds. We debate on politics, criticize the government, comment on the hopeless laws and anything and everything. Not just that we speak on every aspect of life where we live whether its good or bad, fun or frustration.
What I’m wondering is from a perspective of a third person. Imagine yourself in a place where I was when I read the news. Did you notice that the Location of the accused is the first word of the heading of the news? First thing I came to know was that it’s something in Syria, then it’s a Jailed blogger and the last was the name of the person that appears in the last paragraph. I’m thinking! and thinking hard that the laws in the country, the watch on people is strict enough and good enough that they actually care about someone badmouthing about them. They are even tackling the situation in a decent lawful manner rather than blocking every blog across the country!
Sentenced to jail, is something we can’t even imagine in Karachi or Pakistan, do you think we (citizens and the politicians both) have enough “Prestige and National Moral”? Forget about national moral, does a single man have a moral or are we just typing out our guts in order to “expose” everything and prove we are free? Don’t say that the country and us are two different things, it is one thing. If you (we) don’t exist, Pakistan don’t exist and if Pakistan don’t exist we are no one from no where! Everything is related to one and other. The reason for saying this is that we are writing about ourselves whatever we write. In our “social” circle we may be recognized as us, but on a global scale we are only “Bloggers from Karachi, Pakistan”
My point is simple, the “outsiders” reading the blogs would be having what sort of a perception about us and our nation? For instance, if something happens in Karachi, I get tired of explaining the situation to the people abroad. They seem to be under an impression that we are all ‘dying’ here, how can I tell them that only 10 to 20 percent of the city is affected and the “rest is fine”! That is because they hear what the media tells them. The media tells them right or wrong is not of a concern, the concern is that the media can never report on every street situation of a the entire city where the riots emerge – it can never report a hundred percent.
The same way, we are ‘creating’ history of ourselves writing what we are writing. No matter its good or it is bad, it is what it is and the world is reading it. Now I am personally at the toughest of time to form a judgment about my observations and thoughts.
Should we again be blaming the “government” for not implementing proper laws, take us towards advancements, create a national moral and prestige? or Should we blame the writers for writing it all down for the world to read and laugh at us that these people have no “national moral” or prestige?
This is not a picture warped by a bad cell phone camera or a flash, i just took this picture at 9 pm at the Regent Plaza signal on Shahrae Faisal with my 8 mega pixel camera. The glare you are witnessing is from the insanely giant LCD screen installed right across from a major 4 way traffic signal at Regent plaza in Karachi.
Here’s a photograph I snapped whilst at a traffic signal. At first I found it really funny that the girl had her head down, but then the horror of the situation set in very quickly. I’m sad that our families are used to this “nap on a bike”… Tired from school, unable to rest at home because of frequent power cuts (I refuse to refer to them as loadshedding, because I have no idea what load they are shedding anymore!), this is what everyday life has become.
