Pakistan Blocks YouTube 648
Multiple readers have written to tell us of news that Pakistan has ordered its ISPs to block access to YouTube "for containing blasphemous web content/movies." This follows increasing unrest in Pakistan over a Danish newspaper's reprinting of cartoons which depict Islam in a less-than-favorable light. The cartoons also sparked controversy when they were first published a few years ago.
Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes it will take time to achieve any results, but economic prosperity and theism are inversely related, and theism in places like Pakistan is really fucked up and needs to be eliminated or at least marginalized.
Islam - Always Used to Getting its Own Way (Score:1, Insightful)
Cover Story (Score:5, Insightful)
Otoh there were elections a few days ago and there were multiple clips about rigging that happened in the election.
Forward to 1:20 [youtube.com] or just search for pakistan rigging
What's the more probable cause for the ban?
Re:WHY IS THIS IN POLITICS????!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Islam - Always Used to Getting its Own Way (Score:4, Insightful)
The current situation dictates that a lot of oil is in the hands of people who could get a tad bit upset if you don't let them have what they want, at least in terms of free speech. Free speech isn't listed at the NY stock exchange, so it's worth less than losing business with such countries.
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Screw Mohammed. (Score:5, Insightful)
End Religion and End Human Suffering! (Score:3, Insightful)
Religion is also a large part of the reason for suppression of knowledge, increases in fear and the idea that "ideas are dangerous."
But once you subtract 'religion' and 'morals' from the minds of many, you'll find they actually don't know how to think.
Ignoring the differences between the two... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Screw Mohammed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe but there sure isnt enough of them to say "Hey, lets do away with theocracy." The fact that theocratic governments are allowed makes me think that they arent as 'tolerant' as people like you claim.
Cue the moral relativist crowd and the people who are going to reply to this by blaming western powers in 3.. 2.. 1..
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Religion and its leaders (Score:4, Insightful)
No later than 9/11 we (in the democratic world) were made aware how narrow the scope of some Muslim leaders is when quite a few of them spoke out with understanding or even admiration for the criminals that crashed these planes killing thousands of innocent.
Of course this type of behaviour is not limited to Moslims, just look at the retards that, especially in the USofA, are trying to ban education on Evolution or bomb medical clinics.
Here in The Netherlands we had a nice one last night, around 01:00 in the night one of the public broadcasters decided to air the old Deep Throat movie, in (eager?) anticipation quite a few religious leaders protested as if they did not have an off button on their TV
In the case of YouTube there might be a link to my country as an extreme nationalistic member of the Dutch Parliament (Geert Wilders) is readying a movie/ documentary called Fitna (Arabic for Evil) about what he perceives as the dangers of Islam and the Quran.
More and more politicians of wholly undemocratic Muslim nations are protesting with the Dutch government and demanding a stop to this movie as it would be an insult to Islam.
Mr. Wilders has so far not found a regular broadcaster to air his work and has said he'll distribute it via the net, starting with YouTube.
The problem will not go away until religious people, starting with their leaders, learn to accept there is more in this world than their own (narrow) view and that a cartoon or critical movie is generally not meant as an insult or attack but to further discussion and even educate on the subjects covered.
Re:Screw Mohammed. (Score:5, Insightful)
In plain sight. By virtue of not being fanatical jihad-monkeys they tend to blend in pretty well with their surroundings just like peaceful Jews, Christians, Wiccans, etc..
Or did you not know that Muslims can look just like anyone else, speak reasonably, and contribute positively to their communities in unassuming and humble manners?
Hell, if nothing else it is nice having Muslims in your community because their bodegas are open on Christian holidays. Try getting out in the real world once in a while.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:5, Insightful)
Many people there, if they read at all, read religious texts only.
That's your problem. If they had a wider experience in the written word, they wouldn't be so easily led by Clerics with an agenda.
Re:Imho... (Score:3, Insightful)
So what? These people need to be continually provoked until they understand and accept that there's no percentage in getting upset about it. People using threats and intimidation to censor other people should offend every civilized human being.
Look, this is the bully syndrome at work, and by not continually provoking them, by giving in to their threats, you're simply following a policy of appeasement. That never works with a bully, ever, because next time they'll want more. I am not prepared to give it to them.
Furthermore, we're talking about material published on the Internet in another country. They have zero grounds for imposing their own sense of what is acceptable on the rest of the world. It's time they grew up and accepted the fact that the rest of us don't care what they think. As an American, I have to suffer through enough irrational and outright wrong anti-U.S. crap every day, but I don't go around making threats or demanding the Web sites be blocked just because I don't like it.
These people just need to grow up. Until they do, trying to avoid "provoking" them is not a concern of mine, since they don't seem to care if they provoke me. Not, I might add, that it matters what they say about me or my country. I'm an adult, my skin is pretty thick in that regard.
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:5, Insightful)
People do not like to admit it about genocide, but if you do it thoroughly, then it actually works, i.e. solves all problems relating to the unpleasant minority, once and for all. You know what is really ironic? That USians modded the parent +funny, whereas it really should be +insightful. Once you get it into your head that it is your Progress-given mission to bring some sovereign people into the 21-st century, genocide is an obvious answer. Bush would wipe Iraq clean if he could, a long time ago (he obviously does not give a shit about 1M Iraqis, almost all of them civilians, dieing due to war, why would he care about 25M?), but US is not powerful enough to do that with conventional weapons, nor does it have enough clout to get away with it.
How about, instead of "bringing Arabs democracy" and "liberating them from an archaic religion", you liberate them from economic oppression and let them decide what to do with their own oil? Switch to alternative energy sources, perhaps? Develop a defensive military strategy, which should work just fine, as you are on your own frigging continent? Just my 2 cents.
This is about politics, not religion. (Score:5, Insightful)
It serves all the sitting politicians' interests to paint this as a religious thing (including the Bush government); it's up to us to try to see through the propaganda.
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:5, Insightful)
It is technically true that cases of penile cancer are virtually unheard of in males with circumcision, but then again, penile cancer is SO RARE to begin with that it even begs the question of whether or not the sample size is large enough to be conclusive.
And of course, like the other poster pointed out, the children have no say in whether or not a perfectly healthy part of their body is permanently removed.
Re:Screw Mohammed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Immigrant populations send money home and will continue to do so until exchange rates don't make it profitable to come live in western nations while supporting families elsewhere. Most of that money is going to families who are trying to make do in their ancestral homeland, not terrorist organizations.
As for hate literature, I have yet to see this happen in my community. On the contrary there are minimum two major interfaith events a year co-sponsored by the largest local mosque and the largest local synagogue not to mention the year end Unitarian celebration that includes Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Christians, and anyone else who wants to attentd.
All I have to cite for you is my personal experience gathered while living across the USA in places like L.A., N.Y.C., and now New England. Each of these places has visible Muslim populations, and the examples of interfaith cooperation are everywhere for anyone who cares to look.
The only really dangerous experience I have had with a religious group was with the 'Black Israelites' in NYC. And anyone who has dealt with them will tell you that there homegrown religious threats as virulent as any imported Muslim variety.
Re:Religion and its leaders (Score:5, Insightful)
They knew perfectly well they had an off button on their TV. They were angry because they didn't have an off button connected to your TV.
rj
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm leaning towards "the parents who do that do their children are ignorant and unthinking, and don't realize it's a practice that's consider barbaric - and is illegal - in more enlightened European countries" and "the commercial nature of the US healthcare system has lead to hospitals routinely carry out entirely unnecessary cosmetic surgery - even when it's harmful to the patient - because it's profitable".
Religious zealots have certainly managed to brainwash the US populace on this one, to convince them it's a "morally acceptable" practice, even a humorous thing to discuss if you've had your genitals mutilated. In reality, it's an outdated, entirely unnecessary, damaging and irreparable act of barbarism - IMO anyone carrying out this practice on children should be locked up (and, if a medical practitioner, have their license permanently revoked).
If grown adults want to have this procedure carried out on themselves then, apart from undergoing some counciling, they may as well be allowed to have it carried out by someone qualified. If indeed grown adults were left to make the decision for themselves, I think the percentage of people who would volunteer for this practice would be tiny and the industry around it would almost completely die out in the US (apart from within certain specific religious groups).
Fat chance of much change on that front happening in the US though.
Here in the UK it's illegal to carry out the practice, with a caveat: When it can be proven before a judge that a the child is likely to suffer as a result and both parents agree they want it carried out (e.g. if the child is Jewish or Muslim and likely to be teased, harassed or singled out by their cultural peers and so in some way negatively impacted as a result of the operation not being carried out) then it may be carried out (but Doctors or Surgeons are not obligated to carry it out, and may refuse to do it, that it's a violation of the Hippocratic Oath being a common citation as grounds for refusal).
While I can appreciate on the surface this is an attempt to reach some pragmatic accommodation, I think this is the wrong approach and the law needs to be changed here too. I don't see medically unnecessary cosmetic surgery on children's genitals as acceptable, full stop. It's systematic of the UK justice system though - in the eyes of the populace the government rarely deals with the perpetrators of crimes directly or appropriately - it's easier just to tell the rest of us to change our behaviors to fit in with however they have redefined the problem.
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:5, Insightful)
That number is not generally considered credible except by extreme leftists where the number benefits their agenda. Calculating deaths by polling is rather absurd.
Actually, we probably are powerful enough to level the main population centers indiscriminately with conventional weapons. I'm glad we haven't done so, though.
I would hope no-one has enough clout to get away with genocide.
Just because it might work doesn't mean the ends justify the means.
Because we had a defensive military strategy and we were still hit hard on 9/11, even though we're on our own friggin' continent.
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:5, Insightful)
Not "a" Danish newspaper (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what kind of reasoning will lead anyone to attempt to murder somebody for insinuating that their prophet inspire violent behavior. By doing so, they just prove the cartoonist right.
Re:God (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, violence is the best way to solve the world's problems.
LK
Economic prosperity and Islam (Score:3, Insightful)
And like Pakistan, we already trade with them, so I don't think you are on the right path.
rich != smart (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, yeah? [google.com]
Re:Ignoring the differences between the two... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Islam - Always Used to Getting its Own Way (Score:5, Insightful)
You might not have meant to, but you did. Both here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org], you referred to entire religious communities, or a monolithic "they". Do you not see the danger of this habit? As a member of the Christian community, do you wish to be included in the "they" of Timothy McVey, George Habash, August Kreis, the Army of God, the Lord's Resistance Army, etc.?
Moderates strangely quiet (Score:4, Insightful)
But they don't seem in any affective way to be reigning in the actions of their fanatic counterparts. It's as if they don't care that a small percentage of fanatics are ruining the reputation, economy, and safety of their own country. There are no counter-protests, for example. No red-state-blue-state kind of active political debates.
Something is out-of-whack. It strongly appears as if they secretly condone such behavior and only complain against it to naive foreign journalists.
Re:Hmm. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Screw Mohammed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Moderates strangely quiet (Score:2, Insightful)
Not provocation, solidarity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Islam requires theocracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed, it will fail just as every previous attempt to legislate morality has failed. Like every victimless-crime law in the USA, it would require a complete and total surveillance state/police state to enforce, and you can be assured that the kind of people who want to create such a police state and rule over it are not good people who care about your best interests. There is something seriously wrong with any individual or group who wants to have that kind of power and their acquisition of it is far more dangerous than whatever it was they were supposedly going to protect us from -- with no exceptions. This kind of fanatical approach to "removing evil" or "protecting you from yourself" is evil in and of itself.
What such attempts can and have done is to take "evil" behavior (be it drugs, prostitution, gambling, whatever) and drive it underground. A completely unregulated, illegal market for such things has always made them more dangerous. Additionally, I wonder if the proponents of Prohibition were willing to have the deaths of everyone who was killed by the likes of Al Capone on their conscience? That pesky Law of Unintended Consequences is something from which people repeatedly refuse to learn.
I wish we could evolve past this silly notion that good and evil are nothing more than sufficiently-comprehensive lists of "do's" and "dont's", as I think this is where the idea that "forced to behave a certain way = good person" comes from. The whole thing really is a denial of the spiritual nature of human beings and the moral struggles that occur within each person that the outside world never sees. I find it quite ironic that such denials typically come from major religions.
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:3, Insightful)
Permanently removing any body part a parent chooses from an infant is justified as long as no "double-blind controlled study" shows a harmful affect?
Children are not property. Unless there is a "double-blind controlled study" showing a benefit, removing body parts is basically ricing your child.
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:God (Score:3, Insightful)
Smokescreen for government corruption. (Score:2, Insightful)
Pakistan is currently run by a former military leader who gained power in a military coup d'etat, and has in reality always been run by the military at some level. They are a Muslim country only in name; their mullahs/imams have little affect on the government; sort of comparable to Libya, except Pakistan pretends to have a democratic society. Read into the atrocities committed by their military during the Bangladeshi Liberation War ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Bangladesh_atrocities [wikipedia.org] ). I read an essay written by Henry Kissinger who compared it to the rape of Nanjing. This is the same guy who advised Nixon to aid Pakistan, in order to prevent Soviets from gaining a foothold in the area.
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:5, Insightful)
First things first: let's help raise the literacy rate. You've really got to respect the work being done by the Central Asia Institute [ikat.org], as they are building non-fundamentalist schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan, with schools especially targeted to girls. In a perfect world, our government would cut the spending on armament and give the decrease to the CAI to build schools. That's the best long-term strategy to solving fundamentalism, IMO.
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think circumcision makes any sense, but I think it trivializes female genital mutilation to suggest that they're anywhere in the same league of badness.
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that circumcision is done because when the tradition started, people were filthy. Also, it helped keep the kids from playing with themselves.
Today neither of those points matter. We have antibacterial soap, and oppressing sexual feelings only hurts people in the long run. Let the kid grow up without being mutilated and let them make the choice.
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:2, Insightful)
You don't miss it, so you reserve the right to mutilate your son?
Shit, in this entire discussion you haven't actually given a single good reason why you might want to do it to him.
There are some potentially good reasons for circumcision. "Because daddy is mutilated" is pretty fucking definitely not one of them.
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:End Religion and End Human Suffering! (Score:3, Insightful)
Disgusted by Pakistan AND Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:US vs Europe, Muslims vs. Muslims (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh wait this is the word of "allah".
So we just need muslims to tell allah to shut up, and change his mind, right ? Please elaborate on exactly how this works.
(and btw, in Christianity you have the story of the good Samaritan, making the exact opposite point)
Re:Lets bring these people up to speed (Score:2, Insightful)
I.e. moral relavatism rears it's ugly, ugly head. QED
Re:Not provocation, solidarity (Score:4, Insightful)
I understand supporting free speech, but let's face facts here: drawing a picture of Mohammad wearing a bomb for a turban is pretty much exactly the definition of "provocation".
Its not the right to be provocative or to express solidarity with others in your field that we are talking about. Its the right to free expression.
However, provocation is often used as an excuse to censor. As someone who is used to that excuse, perhaps its more apparent to me.
I'm gay. I am married to another man. We live together and love each other in our nice little house in suburban California. The computer on which I am typing this response, and my partner's XO across the table from me in the coffee shop where I am getting caffeinated both have small rainbow flags on them. When he took off while I was writing this, he leaned over the table and gave me a peck on the cheek.
There are places in the US where what I just typed would make us vulnerable to getting the shit kicked out of us. Having been in places like that, I can tell you the risk is serious. And that risk is used to intimidate people back into the closet. The 14 year old Jr High Student who was murdered this month in Oxnard California is dead undoubtedly because of violent reactions to his behavior, that many people to this day would label 'provocative': He was out as gay, wore effeminate clothing, jewelry and make-up to school. In fact, that is such a common justification for homophobic violence that we even have to have laws that prevent people from using the 'gay panic' defense (that is, a queer person because his behavior was so provocative, incited the defendant to violence.)
The problem is that any behavior viewed from another standpoint can be provocative. Just as the cartoons of Mohammad are provocative to many Muslims, I find these images from Iran to be provocative (especially given the position of militant extremists within Islam who would like to impose Sharia on the entire world): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dgsZYA1mPY [youtube.com]
I defy you to watch that in its entirety and then tell me how its reasonable that people who torture and then put children to death for consensual gay sex shouldn't have to have their delicate sensibilities shattered by such provocation as having their religion (the same one that justifies those murders) be mocked? (Because its the same militant fundamentalist factions that are offended by the cartoons - not all of Islam. In fact many Muslims are far more shocked at the death threats than the existence of the cartoons.)
If you want to defend the right to be provocative, more power to you. But don't try to piss in my face and tell me it's raining: provocation was EXACTLY the goal of the cartoonist and the publishers in this case.
No the goal is to speak truth to violence and hatred. Its hard not to give in and meet that violence and hatred with its reflection. Its hard for me to see that video (and I think hard for most human beings not in that culture of violence) and not want to hate Islam. But I don't. I have worked really hard at not hating Islam. I was the chief resident on call in the ER in Brooklyn's largest trauma center that day, had family in Manhattan on 9/11/01, and had close friends who lost family that day. I can still remember the smell afterwards - and knowing that the noxious air that set my asthmatic lungs into spasm was infused with the bodies of three thousand people. It would have been so easy.... painfully easy to demonize and hate an entire religion and culture. To see them as nothing more than animals who should be locked away safely so they cannot harm human beings.
So I read the Qur'an. Its a beautiful book; simple and very powerful - especially if read from the perspective of someone who is not a believer (and perhaps who is suffering a little PTSD due to the violence of true believers.) I also talked a lot with my co-chief at th