Has Chowk become a Trojan Horse? Here's why it's such a negative place:

[So here's my "hidden agenda": To help chowk become what it once promised to be. A place where a genuine progressive movement of pakistani thinkers, writers, artists, doers, can take place. So ya, I'm just "pscho, deranged, delusional, crazy"; I'm taking chowk too "seriously", "it's just a waste time; time pass site". etc. etc. etc. However, I'm simply stating "the jig's up fool"]

Chowk was initially launched and considered a site where Pakistanis around the world could gather, think, and grow. A place for poets and writers, and thinkers, and doers...all Pakistani. Most nations, especially developing countries, benefit a great deal from spontaneous "movements" like Chowk. Although it starts as a musing of some independent thinkers, it takes a life of it's own as a movement. A place like this, has been, and will always be, just as interesting to the foes of that developing nation. For if you derail such a community from moving forward on its purpose, as a foe, this little investment of disruption, is going to pay in the long term. It's a pre-emptive strike type of a notion.

As far as sites go, normal Indian audiences are prone to go to regional indian sites, or sites that are unabashedly indian. An anlysis of chowk has shown that an overwhelming majority of chowk is a Pakistani readership. So one has to wonder about the indian readership that does exist on chowk. True, there are friends here. There is also indian content that gets offered up once in a while, and it is a desi site...but it still does not explain the dedicated 24/7 effort of some indians that have nothing to offer but hatred of Pakistan and Islam. Why are they here?

Out of the total readership of chowk, a very small size of it is actually indian. While a lot of the indian interactors are interested in interacting like anyone else, a small portion of the indian visitors are paid or voluntary disruptors.

So the idea is to keep Pakistanis on the defensive. About the religion, about the country...so instead of being open minded, positive, and progressive thinking, most Pakistanis end up being on the defensive. Over time, being attacked takes a toll on civil and intellectual discourse, and Pakistanis end up finding themselves embroiled more and more in non-positive behavior, and close mindedness. Which leads to a lack of intellectual progress. This is not a co-incidence, this process is initiated by the folks that bankroll the disrupters.

So how do you tackle these voluntary/paid disrupters that have successfully derailed most creative or logical Pakistani discourse on chowk?

Well, you promote creativity where you see it. You make sure that the normal baits (pakistan sucks, islam sucks) are not responded to, and the discussion remains focused on the topics. You develop a code of ethics which states that you and fellow interactors, will not feed the troll (the disrupters)

As it stands now, it is harder than ever to let any profitable progressive movement take form here, that's good for Pakistan and Pakistanis.

So the question is: does one attempt to clean house here, or move to a new house?



Thanks in advance for the replies.

Yours

thinkingstorm/Hurricane/Cyclone/Typhoon

p.s. I'm going to be away from the computer, as I'm working in the campaign offices to turn Nevada and Colorado into blue states. So apologies in advance, will not be able to answer your posts today, but will read them...