We Cut When Asked -- PTCL’s New Censoring Role

MR. Daudpota,


At the start of the article, you want us to think of crack as heroin, where as crack is cocaine, and grey hound might be a dog, but in the writers words, its the Greyhound bus service of america, which is always late as per schedule, and an ``arrived before time`` scinario is usually suspected on a stoned driver, like it is in our blue line services.

The issue of pornography is, by its very nature, subjective. For example, I see pornography as poor taste. Umberto Eco (whom I suspect has all the qualities of a classic “dirty old man”) says that pornography is nothing but the mundane – that is, something which takes no imagination. Some would say that Pushto films are pornography. I would agree, even though there is no nudity.

Mr. Daudpota, if I can read his intention correctly, is attempting to highlight some of the contradictions inherent in PTCL’s blocking policy: That while the government is intent of banning, say, www.sexwithanimals.com, it is grouping the South Asian Tribune into the same category. So much for PTCL’s classification policy. Personally, I find Mr. Shaheen Sebhai an opportunist who has, with some merit, made it good. Attempting to block his views is about is futile as thinking that banning pornography on the internet will curb vice.

For those who think the policy is enlightened: Visit Zaitoon Plaza on Lahore’s Hall Road. There, amongst the thousands of prated DVD’s on sale (Hollywood and Lollywood) are films with such wide and varied titles as Aik Din ki Dulhan, Dulhan Hum Lay Jain Gai, Faisalabad ki Nursain and, the ever popular, Hala Farooqi video. To the shopkeepers, who all take time off for Friday prayers, selling pornography is a business, the purchase of which is dependant on individual tastes. In other words, they just stock the stuff, it’s the people who buy the videos who are “immoral.”

By way of explanation, I would like to say that my knowledge in this area was obtained, of course, purely for scientific purposes.

But the point is this: Pakistan cannot “ban” pornography. Such intention presupposes that pornography is solely of Western creation. This is not so: Sex exists in Pakistan. In droves. It exists in the cities and the villages, and permeates most features of life. Just why do you think women are required to cover their bodies? Surely purdah is not meant to act as an age-old sub-block. It is protect them from the lascivious stares of Pakistani men. And what do you think they are thinking? Really, anyone who thinks Pakistanis are puritans are wrong, unless they know that, as has been revealed by history, puritans are obsessed with sex.

As for pornography on the internet: One of the web’s favorite Pakistani/Indian pornsites is www.desibaba.com, which showcases mostly Hispanic women sporting a bindya (I’ll reveal the source of this trivia in a second). What’s most hilarious about the site is that, during the entire month of Ramzan, the site remains shut, with nothing but a clock indicating the hours, minutes and seconds till eid!!

A friend of mine working as a software developer in Lahore was recently hired to construct a website. His client, he informed me, was strange in that he kept on asking his religious views. Turns out that “Khan Sahib” is in the pornography business. He is setting up a site from Lahore (I think it’s called Sins of India), and which reveals (literally) his collection of Spanish and Latin American beauties. In his words, “It’s only business, yaar.”

But let’s not forget PTCL. Towards the end of last year, PTCL (or the new regulatory body, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, I can’t remember which) sent notices out to all ISP’s requiring them to remove Internet Telephony from its list of services. Meanwhile, PTCL introduced its own Internet Telephony service. In other words, choori and seena zoori. Really, it has to be remembered that the guys who run PTCL are not tech-savvy types. They are regular bureaucrats who, most importantly, implement the orders of their superiors. It’s anyone’s guess who the mastermind behind this clean-up drive is.

Dear manophd(#17): What makes the censorship policy good? Did you watch porn before the censorship? If you don`t watch porn and someone forces you to, will you approve of it? Why then do you approve of stopping those who do?

There was a time when censorship was a problem for us in Pakistan.

Now it appears that such a ``silent`` censorship is now reaching the US.


Ras

-- PTCL’s New censoring policy........very good.

The fact that people are taking this article and the author to be pro-porn shows how clever the strategy of using religion for politics is. Associate the censorship to Islam, and the public will stone to death whoever speaks against it.

Dear Mr. Doudpota, the article is impressive, and the concern is genuine. Ignore the opinions of illiterate losers please. I just think this article isn`t suitable for the naive and unsophisticated stereotypical audience at chowk. Over here a significant audience will only approve of you if you exclaim hatred towards a country or religion.

Nadeem: I think your referring to Azim Daudpota the Air Force Chief and former Governor Sindh?

If your sentiments are shared by public at large, why is it that your article is rated the way it has been rated...a singular vote cannot sway the opinion so adversely!

TFT an average weekly got its big break when Nawaz Sharif the Haressa eating Kashmiri from Lahore turned its editor into a hero and now this Sehbai person is all set to receive the Nobel peace/literature prize thank to PTCL and the likes of Q.Isa Daudpota...

Satanic Verses made its author a literati; and there were a number of them to jump on the bandwagon...ridicule Islam, show disrespect to your country and you values and you are destined to be on top of the New York`s Best Seller`s List....

The correspondent for BBC and for Chicago Tribune have never ever posted a news item or an article that furthered national interest, instead what we see there is news of gang rape, men being disallowed to coach women teams and so on and so forth...there must be something good happening in Pakistan which is worth reporting....

I dont see anything wrong with PTCL blocking a few sites...just remember America hacked Al-Jazerah during the so called Iraq War and delisted it from the stock market...and don`t forget the closure of the mosque by Brits not so long ago...You cannot isolate Pakistan from what is happening elsewhere and demonize everything that Pakistan does or does not....It is brave to point out the problems only if you can offer solutions...neither of us would want our children to watch Desi Baba. com and not all of us are great fans of Sehbai...you have to remember that majority of the internet users are teenage boys and girls who have no idea what the life is all about....none of us would like them to end up being Pakistani born confused desis... would we like we have in the states, the ABCD...I knew such a person when I was going to school....she was to conform to Pakistanii tradition while living in DC and she did exactly that....only that she ended up being 40 pounds overweight and once she realized that she had an option she decided to elope with, to her parents horror, a jew...so go figure...we have a culture, not Arab, not middle eastren, but Indian, much to the distaste of the mullahs our fathers were Indian and not Arabs or Iranian as many of us would like to belive...and modesty is an Indina virtue..believe it or not

It is a case of mistaken indentity...there was a Daudpota who happened to be a general in the Pakistan Air Force, and Chairman of the National Airlines...If you are what you claim you are, then all I can say is that it was a case of mistaken identity..my sentiments for the landed aristorcracy and feudals remain unchanged and I believe that they have no moral high ground to speak at any forum about Pakistan and its woes...as they are the ones who are responsible for this to begin with

re: nadeemkhan # 8

``...you are not one of us and dont belong here...``

This is the problem with Pakistan and Pakistanis!

Who are you to decide who belongs to this site or not and for that matter, who is Pakistani or not; or who is a good muslim or not; who is patriotic or not; who gave you this right and then, you claim to be an advocate for the rights of others! Do you support equal rights or only those rights, with which you identify?

It is this kind of petty and shallow thinking, which has created a culture of exclusion in Pakistan. Pakistan is for all Pakistanis and not just for a few provincially minded Pakistanis. You, nadeemkhan, are not the only one to have suffered and just because you have sufffered, does not imply that you are the sole martyr out of the six billion plus people on this earth.

My advice to you is this, if care to accept it. Judge a person by the worth of his/her character and not by the accident of their birth!

Ciao

responses to earlier commentators:

#1 You are right about the need for people to articulate and fight for their rights. As for SAT, I feel it does sometimes tend to sensationalize the news, thereby hurting its credibility. People ought to read it and make their own judgment. The government has no business blocking it.

#2 Al Jazeera being blocked by the US (private or govt instigated) is bad. As for porn, no one has been able to define it. Adults ought to be free to make up their own mind about what they wish to see. People rightly draw the line at child porn as this relates to innocent individuals who are powerless.

#5 - #8 These are comments that attack the integrity of the author (& his lineage) and suggest that words from some this imaginary being (amazingly cooked up) needn`t be listened to. To set the record staight, my grandfather was a poor carpenter, and my dad through his hard work (studied under street lamps) and intelligence became a scholar of some repute. His outstanding service to education of the poor and the down-trodden in Sindh can be read in his autobiography for those who know Sindhi.

#9 The note rightly point to the issue in question (Does the govt have a right to block information on the Net?). I wish its sentiments had been voiced earlier so that outbursts (#5 - #8) needn`t have been broadcast. That`s of course based on the assumption that people learn from what is being said in these columns and through this kind of exchange of views.

Peace,

Isa Daudpota
12:45 pm PST, 13 June 2003.

nadeemkhan,

you ask mr daudpota: ``What have you or your forefathers done for the destitute of this country, nothing!``

............ don`t you think that is kind of silly .......... why should mr daudpota be held responsible for what his forefathers did or didn`t do ?.............. allama iqbal`s grandfather was a hindoo who converted to islam after he was caught embezzling from the state and the prophet muhammad`s father and grand father were kafirs ............ so what? ..........i think mr daudpota offers a valid argument that should be judged on its own merit ............

..........stop being so petty .........

Isa: you and your kind have the luxury tp tell us, the children of the lesser God, what to do while you and you kind continue to do what you please...

You pretend to be the one who cares about what is happening in this Land of Pure, but do you?

What have you or your forefathers done for the destitute of this country, nothing!

Your elders were the people to reckon with not a long time age, and what did they do nothing!

So please dont waste our time or yours by portraying yoursefl as a person who cares, because you dont!

The Merecedes that carried you from your school is still there as well as the butler, the khansameh, and the hordes of servants

Please try Harward Review or similar sites to post your comments as you are not one of us and dont belong here

Mr Daudpota:

Your stance to rid the public of governmental subjocation is worthty of praise; but you do not deserve any of that

You, the son of a landed aristocrat, enjoy all the benefits that are considered basic for your kind, new year parties, christmans parties, and parties with no prefixes or suffixes...yet you try to relate to the commoner of this country by positng articles such as these which only serve your self interest...namely self-recognition...spare us with your observations and your inhibitions, come and tell us all this when you get rid of your butler, driver, mali, and the hordes of workers that perform this and that on your estate...

It is quite disturbing to note that you out of all the people should post matters realted to ordinary people, especially when you are neither affected by government regulations or state`s coercion. The blue eyed boys have no right to tell the ordinary folks of our country as to which side is up

You should follow the footsteps of your blue blooded ancestors and join Islamabad and Msuhy to make the hey while the sun shines

Pakistan was created by and for the landowners of Sindh and Punjab who have on record denied their fiefs the right to educate their children. And you Mr. Daudpota, descendant of a military might propogate social justice..what a shame..ask your forefathers how they came about all this wealth, which enabled you to wrtie all this at the expense of the masses of Pakistan

Sorr Isa, Your definition of Pakistan and my definition is quite different...

You speak of gardeners that work in your house, I speak of tillers that till the landlord`s soil...you speak of Karachi and its benevolence, I talk about the have nots of Moro and Shikarpur

You and I are different, believe you me, cuz u and ur protected environment tells u that you have a right to log in to any site that u want to , whereas my upbringing and my milieu tells me that I do not have the right to transgress the imaginary line drawn up by landlords like your forefathers!

The person, who sits on the top of the pryamid is Anwar Mahmood and if you know the gentleman well, you would have realized that he is a bureaucrat and like all bureaucrats, he believes in power through its denial to others and the means to that power is information denial. PTCL is only reacting to an age old power envy mentality in Pakistan.

Ciao

People protesting this kind of survillance fail to take into account social values. Instead of protesting all forms of censorship. why not ensure that censorship remains only for Porn? After all most of the porn sites label themselves as such so there should be no difficult in that. If something is not legal in real life should it be legal on the Internet.

Protesting agains each and every thing is counterproductive. We need to see the state (agreed the pakitani military state is not a good example)not as a rival to be appossed but as a institution which you can influence and negotiate.

I dont see your protests getting any headway. You are not likely to find much suppourt among politicans or common people(yes they are the ones who access porn, but most are unlikely to admit it in public)and will ensure that the censorship of political sites prevails.

Sometimes I wonder if people can be so dumb so as to be conterproductive in thier efforts.
Be a realist and make the distinction. It is harder to sell to the public the distinction but then nobody said that life is easy.

Even in US alJazeera site was blocked albeit by private entrprise(every thing is private in US even censorship). Similarly in India it is a crime to download Porn. What are the chances that your efforts will succeed in Pakistan.

Why not set some achiveable goals?

Replace ``Shaheen Subahi`` for ``porn??`` Ironic, even absured, but actually would NOT have been when Mr. Freedom Of Speech/Democracy/etc. Subahi turned his coat by supporting ex-President Laghari`s `constitutional coup` against the democratically elected PPP government in late 1996!
SS is one of those ``progressive`` journalists whose publications, such as TFT, manage to do more for chattering-class catwalks than freedom of speech or whatever!

It is worth remembering - rights are never given to the people. They have to be fought for.

Once they have been fought for then they can be set in stone. Hence the bill of rights. RIght now in pakistan, there are no rights. People have to start from ground zero and start....they have to realise what their rights are and get them through argument and debate and not violence.

In this respect the two fingered salute to the jarnail and his cohorts by the people WRT SAtribune is correct and it is a right worth fighting for.

Articles as the above seem to be an apologia for the jarnail and his cohorts. Good god man what were these guys thinking! They could have been more subtle - sort of a thing comes out.

Celebrate it with gusto. No point doing it in a subdued manner.

I guess people have to do this kind of thing living under the one and half jackboot of the military dictatorship and the then another half jackboot of the unwashed religious nuts.