Pakistan Should Ban Extremism, Not Facebook

By on May 21, 2010 in Uncategorized
For a country that has produced five military dictators in 60 years, mourned the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and struggles continually against its own militant extremists who have killed thousands in their own nation, Pakistan has absolutely picked the wrong fight by banning Facebook and YouTube because of an idiotic virtual campaign called "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day."


According to a story on CNN.com, Pakistan blocked access to YouTube — a day after it shut down the social networking site Facebook — after an online group called on people to draw the Prophet Mohammed. In response, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered its operators to shut down YouTube "in view of growing sacrilegious content on it." Instead of knee-jerk political reactions and impassioned threats of violence, as proud millennial Muslims we should reflect and ponder how our Prophet Mohammed would have responded to such silly faux controversies.


In a recent piece I wrote for The Washington Post, I highlighted a well-known Islamic parable that tells the story of the Prophet Mohammed and his interactions with an unruly female neighbor, who would curse him violently and then dump garbage on him from her top window each time he walked by her house.
 
One day, the prophet noticed that the woman was not there. In the spirit of true kindness, he went out of his way to inquire about her well-being. He then went on to visit his unfriendly neighbor at her bedside when he found that she had fallen seriously ill.

This genteel act of prophetic kindness toward unfriendly or overtly hostile neighbors is the Muslim "Ubuntu" standard that we should all aspire to, not irrational threats of violence aimed at the silliness of some sophomoric cartoons aimed at inciting a provocative response around the world.

If we ask ourselves the simple question "What would Mohammed do?" about this, the even simpler answer would be two words: "Absolutely nothing."



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About arsalan.iftikhar

Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer and Contributing Editor for Islamica magazine; a contemporary global affairs magazine headquartered in Los Angeles and with editorial offices in London, Amman and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is also the founder of www.TheMuslimGuy.com and a regular weekly contributor on the Barbershop segment for the National Public Radio (NPR) show ‘Tell Me More’ with Michel Martin.

His interviews, commentaries and analyses have regularly appeared in virtually every major media outlet in the world including: CNN, BBC World News, The TODAY Show, National Public Radio (NPR), FOX News Channel, MSNBC, Associated Press, C-SPAN,  Voice of America (VOA), Al-Jazeera, Agence France-Presse (AFP), USA TODAY, NBC Nightly News, The Washington Post, ABC World News Tonight, Los Angeles Times, CBS News Up to the Minute, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, TIME, The Economist and Newsweek magazines (among dozens others worldwide).

He is also a regular contributor to CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 blog at AC360.com and his opinion columns have appeared in major publications such as: USA TODAY, CNN.com, Houston Chronicle, Detroit Free Press, The Providence Journal, San Diego Union-Tribune, Charlotte Observer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Miami Herald and many more.

In March 2008, Arsalan was one of four international debaters selected to participate in The Doha Debates on BBC World Television. The Doha Debates are broadcast to over 300 million people worldwide on BBC World Service Television and its stage has been shared with the likes of Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former United States President Bill Clinton.

In addition to The Doha Debates, some of Arsalan’s other international speaking venues have included: Harvard University, Stanford University, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania, The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, University of Michigan School of Law, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and The British Museum in London.

Additionally, Arsalan was cast as a Hollywood movie ‘featured extra’ in the Warner Brothers spy movie thriller Body of Lies (October 2008) starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. He was also a contributing author to Keeping Out the Other (Columbia University Press) and Taking Back Islam (Rodale Press); winner of the 2003 Wilbur Communications Award for Religion Book of the Year. In 2006, the French Ambassador to the United States personally named him to the Personnalités d’Avenir (Personalities of the Future) World Leader Program in Paris sponsored by the French Foreign Ministry.

Arsalan graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 1999 and received his law doctorate from Washington University School of Law in 2003. A native of Chicago, he specializes in international human rights law and is licensed to practice law in Washington DC.

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One Response to Pakistan Should Ban Extremism, Not Facebook

  1. PaulGopal May 23, 2010 at 11:52 am #

    Let There be Peace

    Among All Beings of the Universe.

    Let There be Peace.

    Let There be Peace.

    Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti