RIP Wikyleaks

No, Wikileaks is not gone, it’s still there; but from now it will loose the support it enjoyed from the media outlets and proper journalism community. It feels like it never really appreciated that. By releasing unredacted cables, it has made extremely difficult (if not impossible) for people to defend their actions.

With many newspapers behind him, Assange was able to ward off the major criticism from even many of his supporters; documents were being read by the many News Organizations, things that were too dangerous to be released were being withheld; a reasonable precaution everyone agreed. Such precautions kept many names secret, made sure that peoples lives were not endangered, it protected Wikileaks from claims of hampering National Security and all that most importantly provided wikileaks some credibility, more support.

Wikileaks did what will change the world forever or viewing of history forever. Although no govt. fell because of it no radical change came. In Pakistan, release of such documents just validated what people already knew about the leaders, but no one expected resignations, no one seriously demanded them and no one gave any; not even explanations. American govt. accused it to be playing in the hands of enemies and many in Arab countries cried these documents to be planted by America it self (e.g. Iran on the quotes about it by heads of Gulf countries)

It did changed of what we viewed as “Confidential” and raised the question what governments should declare confidential and what they should not. It strengthened that people who are not directly working in the Journalist organisations can work with them to present ground-breaking news. Wikileaks was blogging getting bigger and reaching a milestone, a natural evolution of what everyone thought WWW will be; a place people can tell what darker things have hidden. And once it was there, there was no hiding, it will reach hundreds and thousands of people, becoming part of history.

Question is do we need everything “Open”; many will agree no, no one wants to all the memos written by every boss at every time circling web, no we don’t want names of sexually abused people on the internet, we want to disclose information about the informants; not because we favor one party or other, because that information can be used to hurt those people; track them and their family down, prosecute them, it can start a witch hunt.

Bigger problem is recent action by Wikileaks destroys the bond it shared with other organizations, they were his shield, they were his backers (even if they did not explicitly stated that), he has lost the partners now.  With loss of his partners he will loose his voice and impact factor. Just data cannot make news, you need people of credible repute to connect dotes, make story from fragments of information, make big picture, verify and clarify. Those people will be more hard to be found.

 

Osama dead, Why Pakistan is silent?

Right now every one must have known that Osama has died. The ghost that haunted the world and was main poster boy of terrorism has finally met his end.

Where was he found? Pakistan, not in mountains, not near border, in ABBOTTABAD. Not in some jungle far away from civilization; right in the city.  (Someone has put the location now on the google map)

Right now all the news is coming is from US, that he has been killed, mainly by operation from US forces with Pakistan’s help;

More interesting point is Pakistan is silent.  Why? is the question that is quite confusing. If we played some role, which I want to believe we really did, why are we not coming out and saying, congratulating our forces and agencies for finding him. More silent we will remain more wind we will give to speculations and spins. It is such an important event.

Also we should take responsibility, explain to our people why he was living in Pakistan, for how long was he living in Pakistan.  Why we were not able to track him down before?

It’s not an era where you can assume that by remaining silent you can avoid the questions. Own the responsibility, own the actions we have to taken to stop the terrorism. President and prime-minister please take a leadership role.

{While our govt. is silent, Live updates are coming twitter from Sohaib Athar http://twitter.com/#!/ReallyVirtual, it appears he was in Abbottabad and was tweeting the incidents without knowing what actually was going around.

Well he is on the New York Observer  Sohaib Athar: The Guy Who Live-Tweeted Osama Bin Laden’s Death}

It’s becoming more and more embarrassing by each minute,  according to Omar Waraich PMA was just a kilometer away from compound, even Hameed Gul is saying “That Bin Laden could be in Abbottabad unknown to authorities “is a bit amazing”" (guardian live blog).  Keeping mum will not wash away the huge embarrassement, tackle the issues that have created this embarassement.

 

No, nothing Burned in Gainesville; only Candles of Unity were lit

I received an email from Pakistan asking whether Quran was burned or not? Email highlighted suspicion that Tery Jones of Dove Church went ahead with his plans and somehow Govt. of Pakistan is

blocking this news. This view was also part of column published by Express Pakistan, although author did not did anything to stop such suspicions.

So let me state, nothing was burned in Gainesville. That evening Gainesville saw one of the most amazing gathering, where citizens of Gainesville regardless of faith, beliefs, social statuses and views came together to celebrate diversity of Gainesville.  A vigil was held to represent Unity and Peace in community.  The news was covered by Sun Gainesville. When candles were lit and silence was held, the downtown plaza was looking heavenly, beautiful,…….

I don’t know about other cities, but following video is another example of  how people protested to stop Quran Burning.  If you go till end, a Muslim guy tells us about people who placed their hands on the grill.

The person who emailed me has emailed back telling they have confirmation somewhere Quran was burned and they are going to protest. I want to tell everyone, protesting is your right but when you protest do remember these people. When you shout anti—— slogans, do shout slogans in the praise of these people. Let’s spread peace and harmony, let’s balance our stories of Dove Church with the stories of Trinity Church of Gainesville, Jewish Rabbi in Gainesville,  Veteran for peace and hundreds of faceless people, who stood not because they love Islam, but because they love humans regardless of their faith and views.

Peace

 

Burn Quran Day and My City Gainesville

As many of you know I live in Gainesville. Among whom who don’t know many will hear this city’s name in few days, unfortunately, for a wrong reason. Recently a church named Dove Church, reportedly having less than a hundred members, announced that they want to burn the Quran (Koran).  I know what you will be thinking, or at least among many of you, there will be disbelief and anger. I want you to control your anger and listen.

Three and a half years in Gainesville and today for the first time I am little afraid. I live in fear of how my country men will react. Will they morph into the lynching crowd of Sialkot? Will they burn fast food restaurants as they did when protesting against caricatures killing two of their own country men or will they set cars and buses on fire? Will they become the monsters the Dove Church envisages Muslims to be?

Muslims of Gainesville need you to remain calm, remember that this does not represent America, this does not represent Florida and this does not represent Gainesville. It is one of the most diverse and welcoming city you can find.  Three and a half years in this city and I have not met one person who has discriminated against me for being Pakistani or being Muslim. My face does not hide from where I am and my name is quite indicative of what my beliefs are.

I want you to remember that this action is being done by a fringe group. Remember that this is not a global conspiracy against Islam; these are just few hate mongers trying to get attention.

Just let me give you a little history: previously this pastor tried to pull of a stunt by asking school-going children of his congregation to wear shirts with “Islam is of the Devil” written over them. Before this no one knew of them. Even before the Muslim community became aware, that school’s administration asked those students to either change their shirts or cover them. This event pushed the Gainesville community to re-introduce school uniforms. Rest of the community in Gainesville, both Muslim and non-Muslim, reacted against it peacefully.

There is one more reason – I have not seen before Muslims of Gainesville as united, as energetic and as active. And Gainesville community supports us; they are against this hateful act. From the day this pastor has announced this program, we are getting support from all-around. Muslim Community of Gainesville has decided that they will not protest. We will respond by servicing the community. On that day we will be having multiple events to help the people of Gainesville who need us. There will be a food drive for the homeless, blood drive and book collection drive.  On other days we are having doing community outreach, having Koran 101 day and opening our Masajids to anyone who wants to come and ask any question.

Why are not we protesting? Because it does not deliver anything, it’s useless and it can result in confrontation. Confrontation is one thing we don’t want. And we don’t want Muslims living away from America to become violent. Your violence, smoke coming out of burning tires and effigies will only harm image of Muslims. We, Muslims of Gainesville, are setting example of how to react intelligently and peacefully; please help us.

I know you are hurt, but will anger go away by doing what we do? Don’t burn things; don’t come out shouting in the streets, drying your throats. There are many things you can do; Pakistan is going from worst crisis now, why not have Largest Donation Day? Or Biggest Blood Collection Drive? Many schools have been destroyed; why not get money for one School?

If you want to show your anger, do it by sending letters. Write letters to the American Embassy, to White House and if you want to Dove Church, telling them to read Book not Burn it.  Educate people about Islam.

Many people will ask why they are allowed to do it. They will say it because they are being allowed this means American Govt. is involved. Remember this is the country, where you can burn the flag of this country, where you can say you favor Hitler and not get arrested.

Most of you know these things and understand the Freedom of Expression comes with the extra responsibility of bearing ignorance, but most of our fellow citizens don’t understand it. Please educate them. Don’t let this become opportunity for radicals and extremists.

 

take jobs from Obama supporters? Talkmaster

I switched on car and before putting it in the gears, I pushed the radio button and first non music station was 97.3 FM. There was someone criticizing Obama, nothing unusual, what was unusual was now he was targeting  Obama supporters.  He was explaining to the caller that we should take people in the non-employment line and give them the jobs of the people who are supporters of Obama. That is put these Obama supporters on the non-employment list because they are supporting the policies which are causing economic problems.

For some seconds I can’t believe it, how can you take away someone’s job because for whom he/she votes? or what his/her political views are. Should clerk be fired because he voted for ABC candidate?

This guy, I think calling himself “Talkmaster”, continued to explain his theory to the caller. After sometime I think he realized what he was saying, so he spinned it saying that if you are hiring someone and there are two candidates who are absolutely equal in every way but that one of them support Obama’s policies don’t hire him.  Again appalling statement, that during the interview of job political views of a person should come into consideration. He was not talking about hiring a lawyer for the firm or top policy makers for the company, he was talking about all the jobs. If  a firm who does Off shore oil drilling yes I will not hire a lawyer that believes such activities should be banned, but should I ask a clerk about his political affiliations? Should Wallmart be telling if you voted for person XYZ you are going to get the Job?

I tried searching on the web about this guy and came up with name, Neal Boortz, he calls himself  ”Neal Boortz aka: The Talkmaster, Mighty Whitey and The High Priest of The Church of the Painful Truth”. Following was on  his webpage, where he continued giving this stupid advice to everyone.

Try to figure out who you have on your staff who voted for and STILL supports Barack Obama. One good way to do this would be to have someone head out into the employee parking lot and look for people who still, for some reason known but to God, have an Obama bumper sticker on their car. Call that person into your office and tell them that since they are still Obama supporters you are going to let them go. Tell them that there are people out there who made the sensible choice in the 2008 election and who are now looking for jobs. You would rather have them on your staff than someone who contributed to this problem. The people who recognized Obama for what he was before the election should not be the ones suffering for his policies. They are the ones who should be on unemployment.

Now some of you might want to point out that it might cause a bit of a problem if you fire someone for how they voted. OK, I’ll buy that. Just tell them that coworkers have been complaining about their body odor. There’s probably some validity to that anyway.

http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2010/08/hows-that-hopey-changey-workin.html

It appeared to be suggestion taken from third world countries, where with change of govt. thousands of people are fired and loyalists are hired, more appalling was that that caller agreed with him, without understanding the repercussion. Ok for scenario let’s assume that a company or let’s assume a hotel owner starts feeling that because previous govt. allowed the Wall Street guys to play with people’s money without any check and balances, previous govt. and it’s supporters are responsible of house he lost and layoffs he has to make. Therefore he goes on and fires the people who voted for Republicans, will this be justified. I will say no.

Oh you can say but his point of view is wrong, these Wall Street guys were not only given freedom by the Republicans but the Democrats also, see Clinton had his time but not checks and balances were introduced, Democrats did not tried to pass any thing to stop this or that. Got it!  you might be right, but whos going to decide who is right and who is wrong here?  That’s why you don’t allow the jobs to be decided on the political views, because a hotel manager might have different perspective of who is responsible for his financial mess.  Laws against discrimination on the basis of how a citizen votes or what political views he/she has, are made to avoid such situations. It is intelligent that one should move forward on path of nondiscrimination and not backward.

 

Facebook banning or Boycotting?

According to Dawn (http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/03-lhc-orders-block-of-facebook-over-caricatures-ss-02) Facebook has been banned and

banned by whom? Lahore High Court.

Why? because some ridiculous  facebook-group was having “Draw Mohammed Day” on 20th of May.

An emotional decision, by High Court. It gives you feeling that said judge don’t understand Web and  surely he/she don’t understand how the social-networking sites work. I don’t think people who have petitioned to ban the site even have tried using the site with rigor . Anyone on Facebook can create any page, although it could be deleted by the Facebook but  I don’t think Facebook will delete this page on Lahore High Court’s order.  So  what will it achieve? will it stop the facebook-user not creating any further such pages?

Lahore High Court cannot ban the freedom of expression. The PTA has already blocked that Group’s page; so one cannot even say that site was promoting hate (PTA’s announcement can be found here). There are hundreds of Muslim users on the Facebook, with hundreds of videos and links, and there must be many group pages directed to Islam.   People share news, arrange fundraisers, arrange parties, share pictures of events, comment and discuss the world. (Although I believe it is colossal  wast of time, especially of mine, but this is not the point here) .

These hundreds of Muslims are also friends of thousands of other non-Muslims, I have seen a Jewish Student discussing his point of view with the Muslims guy, I have seen Indian’s and Pakistani’s commenting on each other links and news-updates, it is soft-community allowing opportunity from people around the world to connect and share.  (even on the “Draw Muhammad”‘s page there is a Muslim guy having discussion trying to explain Islam)

By blocking the site you are blocking all this also.

We need to understand Govt. or Court ordered censorship does not do well in the open societies. Only thing it will create will be high number of people siding with Facebook.  Even I will say that you cannot ban the whole social-network site, if you have objection to one page.  It will news, a big splash in the News Media. Editorials will be written from Gaurdian to NYtimes discussing this decision. Many will just portray, citing this decision, Muslims world to be less tolerant.

Before today a valid response coming, an appeal to Boycott the Facebook on 20th May. Although I am not such big fan of boycotts, it would have been show of power by the users of Facebook telling the Facebook that they are not happy with such pages coming up. Although Facebook does not have clear model of earning, but still large amount of their income is from the advertisements. If thousands of users around the world has stopped using website for one or two days it would have been send them strong message that their user base is not happy.  But now it is govt. sponsored activity. It’s different ball game.

In todays world Censorship backfires; you can decrease the access of your people to those websites, but those websites will not be removed. Whereas the Boycott is a user generated response, it works.

I don’t understand under what law this was banned? Who was representing Facebook? Can they ban any Public Domain website without issuing them notice?

And who are these petitioners, where were they before today? Why they petitioned just one day before the event, leaving no room or time for arguing against or for the ban.

The more interesting part is

“The court has also ordered the foreign ministry to investigate why such a competition is being held,” Azhar Siddique, a representative of the Islamic Lawyers Forum who filed a petition in the Lahore High Court, told Reuters

They don’t even understand the events which led to this so-called competition; My Lord “It was response of censorship”.  By censoring this you will just them more headlines, more attention; enabling others to create other such competition. Foreign Ministry cannot investigate such thing, they need some Social Science and IT related guys to explaining to them them what is going around. Especially the guys who watch South-Park.

 

After Fort Hood Shooting; a Muslim view

Everyone right now must have heard the news that a Muslim Army officer went on shooting rampage at Fort Hood. I first thought it could be any person having Arabic name, but then it became apparent that he is Muslim. And Guardian is reporting that He shouted Allahu Akbar before shooting.

This is sad and worrying day, 13 lives have been lost and about 28 people are injured. This is worrying not only because such shooting are becoming repetitive event in which some normal looking guy walks in with gun and start shooting. It happened at mall, it happened at school and it happened at university campus; now at military base.

It is worrying also because an involvement of a Muslim will open door for more prejudice, bias and hate towards Muslims.  As a Muslim I am concerned that instead of viewing this event as an action by mentally ill person much like previous shootouts, people will try to put in the picture of Islamic Terrorism. This will give people tool and opportunity to speak against the Muslims.

There is going fear in online community that this might trigger religious or atleast geographical profiling. One of the interesting discussion of which I was pointed out is going on over article by Hirscfield on Washington Post  http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/brad_hirschfield/2009/11/fort_hood_massacre_no_indictme.html

Ironically, those who will use this event to disparage all Muslims or Islam in general, even to the point of violence, will prove themselves no different from those they oppose. In fact, they will prove how much they share with Mr. Hasan. Such generalized hatred is precisely the animating approach of anyone who opens fire on a collection of individuals who pose them no immediate threat.

But in b/w he asks that question should be asked from Community he came from. Interesting reply came from one of the poster

kjohnson3′s Reply:

When you refer to “the community from which the murderer came,” why do you look only at the religious community from which he came? He also came from the military community and the medical community.

I personally have not viewed till now any discrimination, I can feel that heat is increasing, someone on Fox News just asked that whether Muslims in Military should go through Special Screenings.

I will like to ask; was some Special Screening arraigned for the people belonging to ethnicity or religion or community of previous shooters? But then we all know about the Fox News, if you don’t know much about Fox News,  you can assume they are Big Version of Zaid Hamid.

In response to these hate messages there are lots of messages talking about not to use Guilt By Association, and are for supporting American Muslims. I have personally found Americans to be friendly and never came face to face with anti-Muslim person. One of the reason might be because I live in University Town, but I believe this is general feature.

As for with such event, I ask people to not to let their fears, biases and pain make them hate other people. And as for every such case one of the critical question that should be raised is how he was able to take gun inside a secure area? Why was there such security lapse?

Other critical question is Why was this person not flagged as a risk person?

If his views, as being told by some news agencies, were extremists he should have been separated, where was negligence? An extremists person should not have a place in any Army, this is true for any extremists, be it religious or social.

If it becomes visible that his motivation was not only PTSD but also religious, then it will be quite worrying part. It is critical that we should recognize that there are thousands of extremists who think their motivation comes from the religion.  Hundreds have died in Pakistan from the hands of extremists who think their actions are justified from Religion, about 2 decade back there were groups going for extremists activities because of their political (which were non-religious) views. Just few months ago Tamil tigers were killing their own people and still in regions of India Maoist have been accused of mass killing.  In America there are White Supremest and religious conservative who think they will one day have to go on war with others. In Europe there has been rise of BNP.

These all form of extremisms are to be condemned but understood that they don’t define communities, religions or ethnicity. I wish everyone good luck, it is difficult period on this world.

I am just a visitor in America, soon I will be back to my homeland Pakistan; the one thing I love about America is Equal Rights for everyone. But such rights can not just be dictated by Law they have to be implemented by society. I hope American society keeps on implementing that.

 

America and Pursuit of Happiness; By Maira Kalman

NYTIMES published this illustrative article. I liked her illustrations, you should check out other portions. also look at her other illustrations.

Go Down in the bottom for the Mango Lassi and Pakistani-Cookies

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/i-lift-my-lamp-beside-the-golden-door/?hp

Nice piece about Why people come to America

 

Make Cartoon Stupid!

In the wonderful article about where the cinema is going, the ending line is enough to tell whole story. I thought you might like it.

Or go see “Up,” the only hugely successful movie of the summer that engages genuinely adult themes. It’s about loss, frustration, disappointment. And it offers one of the season’s most pointed and paradoxical lessons. If you want to make a mature film for mature audiences, make sure it’s a cartoon.

Open Wide: Spoon-Fed Cinema

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/movies/09scot.html?pagewanted=2

 

No Health Care Budge!, Economics and Peter G Peterson

I was just listening Charlie Rose and there was Peter G Peterson. I am totally impressed by what he was saying about the Economics. He explained how the foreign lending is weak point of America, how this Foreign lending is giving China and Japan leverage on US. (Gave e.g. of Swiss Canal, where use US used this leverage on France and Brittan).

On Charlie’s question that China and US relationship is considered to be good because many believe China needs consumers of US. Peter replied that If he is hearing Chinese correctly then they are realizing that such relationship is becoming Un-Sustainable, and Chinese are spending huge money to build their domestic consumer market.
I was really impressed here, this concept of unsustainability, where lender recognizes that instead of crushing the borrower in further debt, he should shift it’s resources to make other market.

Then he said US is only Country that does not have Health Care Budget, I was what!
It can’t be. but he said multiple time that we don’t have it and best way to deal with the health crisis will be to make Health Care Budget. Because then Govt. can say that these are somethings which we will not do for you, e.g. medical interventions in last days of life when it does not improve the quality of life, second liver transplant for Alcoholic, etc….

Yes, realities, realities that everyone knows but no one says.