Facebook Status

It was one of those days when you come across a development that affects everyone . Most of the 45 million Facebook users in the country are pretty sad that they won't be able to get their regular shot to satiate their addiction to Facebook in Pakistan for some time to come because of the Lahore High Court order. The issue is turning into a debate....local media and the international ones are speaking about it, mostly not sure about what to say.

Its an altogether different way of creating unrest around the world. This highlights the importance of social media that defines much of public opinion these days.Take the case of recent UK election.

Now that people have been absolutely enchanted by the phenomenon of social networking that makes you come close to even strangers ( who can sometimes even murder you) irrespective of cast, colour, region and religion gets you into believing that the world has become a very neutral place. Incidents such as this one make you realise that it still has not.

Reaction from Muslims across the world has been somewhat mute if not non existent. It has not so far been like the 2006 Denmark case of blasphemous cartoons when Danish dairy demand in its biggest Gulf market had gone for a toss....Publishing blasphemous cartoons had cost money to Danish business but is blocking facebook in just Pakistan going to mean anything for the website owners?

But there have been many across the world who have had issues with facebook's privacy policy and thousands are planning to quit facebook for good by May 31 because they still are not sure about how secure they are on facebook. But many want to stay because young people think that employers these days value good social media skills and hence prospects of better jobs flourish.

Muslims perhaps are still wondering, how to respond to this offence to their religious sentiment. This time what has been used to hurt them is something that has gone beyond geographical boundaries...its not a matter of a single country, cartoonist or one newspaper. Its a comunity thing.....a human need ( socialising). Using facebook , that has more to it than meets the eye.What was once just a want has now become such a need that it is hard for people to imagine a life without it and rightly so , when they have a completely different personality on the web leading a starkly different life.

Facilities such as Black Berry(BB) have been suspended in obedience to Pakistan Telecom Authority's directive. BB users will ofcourse have their own set of problems arising as a result of that.

Islam forbids the depiction of Prophet Muhammad ( S.A.W) in the form of any drawing or picture.

So, whoever has called for that caricature competition, has in a way committed an act of terror against all these Muslims , whose daily life has become extremely dependant on the connectivity and promptness and the opportunity to show that I am there!. All of that has been sabotaged.

At the same time, somewhere in their hearts they love their Prophet ( S.A.W) too.