Now that the elections are just round the corner in Pakistan, political discussions among the common men are getting rigorous. During Eid holidays, the guests at home kept talking about the politicians and the future of Pakistan. This is, I guess, the beauty of this whole process. However, among all this heated debate and convincing, what we didn’t lose was the respect of each other’s view while having this talk in person. Not once, did I encounter the whole argument getting out of control in terms of losing the relationship people were in. Now take this over social media and the forums we have, you will see a totally different temperature at which this “talk” is usually held. Social Media is an uncontrolled weapon of mass destruction which can cause infinite harm if not managed with some sense.

I remember when the elections were happening five years ago. Fever of Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif was almost bursting the mercury. People turned hostile on forums, their Facebook statues were exhibiting nothing but upright hatred and condescension against other parties. There was hardly any logic behind an argument. It was mostly a hate game where everybody had already made up their mind and hence, none of the convincing turned into any conversion Allah k fazal say 😐

Yes, my dear friends, we made zero conversion despite all that hard (read hate) work we did on social media to save our leader. But there was one thing that visibly happened. It was the disrespect and intolerance that we exhibited for our friends and strangers, who we randomly decided to knock down, at some equally random strange political groups.

I myself fell under the spell of social media and ended up having a heated discussion on Facebook which ultimately led to deleting and blocking that person from not only this unreal world of internet but also the real one…Can you believe this??? typical woman mentality but who to blame?

Actually, people don’t write good stuff about their political affiliations. Instead they use all their energies to badmouth the other political parties and opponents. This is the wrong foundation for any discussion. Another thing that boggles me is the disrespect we have for all the strangers in the world. Knowing that nobody is going to punch our face in the actual world, we feel the real freedom in insulting the other person and his viewpoints. Unfortunately, this has become so common occurrence now a days. We carry no liabilities and no identity on the internet. This makes us go off limits and act like V for Vendetta when demeaning the viewpoints of the opposite party.

If I don’t know you – I have no right to insult you and even if I do know you – I still have no right to insult you. So please – have some empathy and don’t insult people. Imran Khan would never know or care that I have one minus friend on Facebook just because of him. We keep fighting for things and people who don’t feel an iota of respect for whatever we do for them – even if it means killing someone with our words on the internet!!!

Few years ago I watched the TED TALK by Monica Lewinsky. It was an extremely touchy subject to talk on: “The Price of Shame” (Cyber Bully). She spoke about how she fell victim of social media after the incident. So much so that she got depression and went suicidal. This shouldn’t have happened. There is this army of people who just hate you and have the ability to kill you – yet they are invisible and not to be seen in the real world. My question is: why should you and I become a part of this shameful army?

So this time around I have decided not to argue with anyone on social media. And even if I would, I will make sure that my personal relationship is not affected. If we have nothing nice to say about someone/something, we should learn to stay quiet…and this applies to me as well :/

The only take away from my blog is to exhibit empathy on social media for strangers who you don’t intend to meet in real life. They are people with flesh and bones and have a heart that may get offended the minute you get personal with them and say nasty things. Usually, the main topic of discussion is forgotten under such incidences and a new pandora box is opened where people are only abusing one another.

So next time you open your mouth to demean the other person, remember that your political leader will not be affected by your act of gallantry whatsoever. Learn to respect humanity!

Thank You!

All for One and One for All: Pakistan