The year 2009 ended with the Ashura procession bombing in Karachi with post bombing planned burning of markets .
The year 2010 opens with a tragedy where 96 dead within 12 hours, and more than a 100 injured in a horrible bombing of a crowd in a stadium where the poor ,ordinary folks (men) had gathered to watch a game of volley ball in Lakki Marwat, a town in the Frontier province , close to South Waziristan and Dera Ismail Khan , two towns where a lot of militant violence has been induced.
Why were these people , both audience and players targetted in such a brutal , barbaric manner? After all they were only playing a game of volley ball? As I asked this question, my husband replied that they would have been accepted and not targetted by Taleban or militants if they were playing 'Gulli Danda' a stick and stone game for locals. I was not so convinced at the logic of this act of barbarism. But as I was surfing the net for pictures to post on my blog for volleyball, I saw the real reason why the Taleban have targetted the crowd with death and destruction , only for a game of volley ball!
There were bare, asses, revealing postures of women playing volley ball on the beach. This kind of dressing , baring all ,revealing all is not acceptable in the Islamic culture at all. Not one picture I searched was of males playing volley ball. So ,the sociological question and now socio-political question arising is this; What is the boundary of posting pictures on the web ? Is not the Western media using and representing women as sex objects? Is not this kind of photography considered harrassment and infringemnet on human right and freedom. In this modern , violent world where does the responsibility lie on alienation, sexual harrasment, violent response generation? Is the Western , European and American society not using women's and also men's images in a way that is synonymus with exploitation? Where would a woman, who is not good looking, has some physical disability stand in this society that is looking, exposing the human body as objects.Where does exposing the human body and then pretending at the same time that freedom is the right, lead the ugly, poor and disadvantaged in this'advertised' society?
What is the human rights of women ? Bieng exposed as sex objects even if they are playing volley ball?
The idea of chastity has become so revulsive to the West, why? Then what are the laws for? What is the moral basis of the rule of law as practiced in the European and American societies?
Does civilisation and democracy only mean setting up development programs, and governments with some kind of majority vote?
I would love if men like Slovaj Zizek looked into this paradigm of moral responsiblity of Western society.
Does a world dialogue only means interfaith dialogue, justifying religious practice, or it also should include social and moral responsibilty , focussing media, representation of culture, practice and belief?
Should not the leading thinkers in West and East now shift their debate focus from 'intellectual' answers to 'real' insight into social , political, moral and cultural tolerance in this extremely divided, polarised and violent world?
As there are violent attacks on people who make cartoons and hurt the sentiments of billions of Muslims all over the world at this time in the history of mankind, is there a right of individual to be exposed to images and videos of French kissing on clicking on Google search for videos by simple typing the word 'Google videos'?
What is the 'limit' or 'line' between pornography, child pornography, of which the West is so spending millions to police the net and the world when on average MSN page you get advertisements like what sex will you have tonight? What are the rights of the child to exposure to media, internet?
Will the Western society and media particularly decide and see that all content on their platform is partcularly non-sexual, and the choice is left to the viewer to choose to go on sexual content. If this right of individual is not given and protected on internet, such violent reprisals on innocent people millions of miles away from London and New York will also continue and so will be planning for more violence to target the West.
I am a liberal, moderate, Pakistani Muslim woman and I find it vrepulsive that when I typre anythig on google, many times, Yahoo and always on MSN some kind of sexual content always comes up in the homepages. The web is all over the world now and many millions of non-Western peoples are also using it, so why this Western dominance of using women as sexual objects in media ? We just do not want it. It is repulsive and so unbecoming of a society that champions itself as a flag bearer of human freedom. Human freedom does not mean nudity. Human freedom does not mean stereotyping to Western imaging to Women's bodies. The French find the Islamic Burka so repulsive and label it as encroaching on human freedom. Is using the woman as a sexual object not exploitation and against human freedom. Why do you think there is such intense response to body exposure in the West by the Muslim people? Can the Western, liberal thinkers and scholars not debate and reach any conclusion. I believe that the Western media is doing much harm to world peace, yes world peace as that is the paradigm shift in polarisation now ,in causes leading to violence, other than occupation and war. Where are the philosophers and thinkers like Slovaj Zizek on this?
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