Innocence of Muslims, indeed

I think it is ironic how the videomakers have experienced fame at the expense of Muslims’ innocence. The quality of their work is so bad that they would be chased out by rabid dogs if they ever stepped into Hollywood. But not now, I fear.

Now they’re famous – all because of sentimental, ignorant, emotional and passionate Muslims. If you are lost and still don’t know why I am ‘attacking Muslims’, please allow me to try to explain.

There are millions of websites on the Internet that generate content (videos, articles, photos, etc.) through users. With thousands of submissions each day, they usually push the most-liked or most-clicked content to their ‘front’ pages. This means that if you click on a YouTube video a lot, it will be pushed to the main landing page of their site, get noticed and get EVEN more clicks!

A ridiculous attempt at offending Muslims through the ‘movie’ called Innocence of Muslims would probably never have reached the viral potential it has now achieved if offended Muslims had not talked about it, written about it, or signed petition after petition asking for it to be removed. Silence is the best weapon here – the same way you ignore irritating beggars on Kalma Chowk.

Perhaps you and your friends were not stupid enough to search for the video(s) and view them, but the majority of Muslims give in to their curiosity, clicking-through to the video to see “what’s so offensive about it after all.” You might even have stopped watching it after the first minute or so but your ‘view’ has already been counted in the statistics and given the video an additional viral buzz.

I have received an overwhelming amount of invites through Facebook Causes and other badly designed Facebook applications asking me to sign a petition or support a cause by clicking through, but I refuse to comply – because I probably have 1000+ non-Muslim friends on my list, and I don’t want news of the video (or angry Muslims’ protesting violently) to be made known to them.

But my efforts are always in vain. Thousands of Muslims have already protested over the short film by burning tires, and damaging property – even killing a person who had nothing to do with the making of the film. I am worried that some Muslims will kill themselves when they realize they were responsible for the short film to have achieved headlines across the world.

I understand your intentions were genuine – you could do nothing else but raise your voice, but when you raise your voice, some of us get carried away by emotion and do some stupid things. In fact, when you ‘raise your voice’, you fuel the viral spread, and now, because you got upset and shared it with your friends, your friends are upset too, and their friends are probably also upset – and so on and so forth till such videos become #1 on the “most viewed’ lists.

I hope I have managed to make my point. Maybe next time, Muslims – upon seeing or hearing about something offensive to them – will quietly report it, not talk about it and try their level best not to make headlines. I sincerely think that is the best way to avoid such offensive content to be promoted by Muslims themselves.

Make Love Not War

Conversation between a friend and her bf...

Drone attack on the US - Senator Graham furious

Now that I have your attention, listen up America. Stop being such a schmuck. It is high time for you to come out in the open and admit that you failed in Iraq and you failed in Afghanistan. You are not the God of Thunder and Thunder does not get rid of terrorists.

Nowadays Obama sits in his Oval Office hogging up the red button that sends drone attacks to distant locations, after he gives in to the whims of his advisors and other know-it-all’s. We all know that a report suggesting a 10% chance of hitting the target could, in fact, succeed, while a 90% chance of hitting a target can sometimes be amiss. Yes, Thunder is a funny thing to play with.

What’s worse is that you don’t even inform the respective governments of planned air-strikes. In fact, you’re so messed up yourself that you end up killing your OWN civilians in Yemen!

See what a mess you made in Logar? I can almost picture it – the Afghan forces reached a house where a renowned terrorist was suspected to be – one soldier jolted the door handle in an attempt to yank it open – when all of a sudden they heard a BANG! Poof! 18 Afghan soldiers died without even the glory of a battle.

Hell, we don’t even know if the suspected target was hit or not. Some dork probably told Obama seconds after he hit the red button, “That was very good sir. I think we got him!”

Don’t get me wrong though – I really like Obama. I’m sure he straightened his tie and got up to make a speech about withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Who needs people down there anyway when you can use Thunder, eh?

And while we’re on that, what’s the point of withdrawing troops so elegantly that it will take you two years? Maybe you should learn from the French. They lost four people yesterday and they’re already pulling out next month – smart pussies that they are (sorry, please excuse my French). 

Could it be that an American’s life is less valuable than that of a Frenchman? Nah, their government just cares more.

Now I’m not a military strategist or leader of the world’s (dying) superpower, but I know that chopping down these terrorist groups is like cutting off Hydra’s heads – when struck off, each one is replaced by two new ones. Already there is an increase in Al Qaeda operatives in Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria and Indonesia. Extremism is on the rise and you are doing nothing to calm it down – only making it angrier.

And making it worse for those of us snickering at Eric Cartmen’s follies while living in Muslim countries.

Side-note: Dow University of Health Sciences in Karachi is apparently one of the best medical schools in the country, my wife tells me (although hers is better, of course). They are beginning US Medical Licensing Examinations’ tuition courses soon as advertised in the paper today. What beats me is that you Americans throw drones down on us and we are so foolish that we let you take away our nation’s brains in return. And they work to improve your health?! Fuck this, we aren’t ‘a dysfunctional society’, we’re just plain retarded!

Gillani: So why don't they leave?

Free SMS to Pakistan from the Internet

Following up from my previous post about sending Free SMS to Pakistan from the Internet, today a colleague shared a link from propakistani.pk over email. Apparently, as long as you worship Lord Googleuddin, you can NOW send free SMS to Pakistan - but only to Mobilink customers.

SMS sent by Gmail users to Mobilink subscribers will be free of cost, but with limited daily credits. Gmail offers initial SMS credit for 50 SMSes, which decreases each time you send an SMS from the Gmail chat client. Every time you receive an SMS message in Chat (for example when a phone user replies to one of your messages) your credit increases by five, up to a maximum of 50.

Pssst, you can also send an SMS to your own phone, and then reply to that message multiple times to get 5 credits for each reply. This is legal, as you’re buying credits by paying your phone company - finally they're getting smarter - maybe they read my previous blog post.

As usual, Google has been smart about it - the way they've designed it gets rid of spammers, who will not have credits after sending the first 50 messages - and how many new Google accounts are they going to make, right?

Right.

But it sucks that other operators in Pakistan haven't picked this service up because, see, with Mobile Number Portability it is impossible to detect the mobile service provider your contact is using (just by looking at the number). So now it will be hit and trial for most of us if we use the free SMS service, and if we get a reply back - only THEN we will know our contact has a Mobilink number and that they received our message.

But hello! Taraqqi!

Overseas Pakistanis will be pleased.

Pakistan: No change without spare change

Pakistan: No change without spare change

As I landed in my home country somewhere around the end of 2009 after a few years, I had not realized that this was not the same Pakistan I had left only a few years ago.

Friends poked fun at me, and nowadays the ones who return after a similar gap share the same observations I had been making then - that Pakistan has changed, somewhat.

But it is very hard to determine what has changed. Allow me to share some random observations.

When I left Pakistan, female models' faces in billboards (in Lahore) had been melanined with paint by Jamiat walas. Rewinding a bit farther in the same era during Benazir Bhutto's stint at running the country, the South Asian fusion band Junoon got banned for 7 years for writing a song called Ehtesab which poked fun at corrupt politicians who shrugged off accountability (ehtesab).

By contrast, today I see way more female flesh in advertisements (warning: inner maulvi/aunty speaking!) and well, I'm sure everyone has seen Veena Malik's FHM photo online, even if the actual magazine cover had been sprawled over by black markers.

Owls: Wise in your language, but otherwise in ours.

You must've heard Shehzad Roy's new single - Apney Ulloo? I mean, wow. He goes through the ENTIRE history of Pakistan and charges Pakistan with worshipping the US (apney ulloo - goray goray!) throughout the song. And he is nowhere close to being banned - Salman Ahmed must feel awful for being muted when he tried to raise awareness on the same lines, having to resort to more subtle and subliminal techniques back then...

Things have certainly changed.

When I think Pakistani TV, my mind still thinks of PTV, STN, Geo and ARY. Back then, Musharraf was closing TV stations at will (after giving them the independence they still enjoy today) and things were, well, more conservative. There was no Mathira taking obnoxious calls, live on air, I tell you!

For one reason or another, but mostly because I'm a new media person who believes in freedom of choice, I have not watched television here in Pakistan. (I believe I am a smart human being who doesn't need TV programming to determine what I should watch; when to watch it.)

However, I have caught glimpses at work or at relatives' places and I was disturbed to see shows like Big Boss, though enthused to see shows like Hasb-e-haal that try to educate people, somewhat (minus that ever-present hyena in the show - no offence to her personally). But once I was at a florist's shop in DHA Karachi, and they couldn't stop laughing at this guy being beaten by a civilian woman, just to tell her later she was on candid camera! I mean, this is the kind of fart comedy culture that has stupefied the American population (among others) for years, and distracted talented people from pursuing content that supercharges intellect.

But yesterday I discovered that at least some things haven't changed in Pakistan all these years: the aunties. If you haven't seen this video already, I embed it here for it is a must watch:

Samaa TV's Subah Saweray Maya Kay Sath airs Mondays through Saturdays, 9 am to 11 am (repeats on Sundays at 10 am). My wife doesn't allow me to have any thoughts on this Gheirat Brigade by aunties because I tend to get sexist but here I quote Nimra, an environmentalist in Pakistan. She says:

Why arent these upper-class pseudo-liberal aunties (otherwise known as the real mullahs) going to the cafes in Zamzama to track down their daughters and thier friends? Why arent they going to five-star hotels where rich men bring thier mistresses? Apparently, dating, among other things is moral and liberal if you are rich but if you go to a park you are to be chased and humiliated? The greatest oppressor of women in Pakistan is other Pakistani women.

People ask me why I carry a copy of my Nikah-Nama (marriage certificate) in my wallet. With aunties like that chasing dating women (while wearing those shuttlecock burqas, I tell you!) and Police like this, I feel a lot safer with my Nikah-Nama in my pocket. But I have never had to take it out, so far.

When you come to Pakistan, you should know that self-righteousness knows no bounds here. We hide our inner hypocrisies well, and most of the time, our Inshallah's, Mashallah's, and Allahu's are cover-ups induced by our inner-but-overriding, holier-than-thou ego.

(Also we are {in} a hopeless state so it is more comforting for most of us to think there is an All-Seeing Superbeing out there - even if deep down inside we don't really think Anyone's watching us.)

Hoho.

Author's note: Samaa has already taken their video down. We found a replacement link, and will try to continually do so.