Seema Manazir just revealed the other side of the story. The abuses that followed only strengthen her case that Pakistani blogosphere needs to be cleaned up. And the more people know about it, the more ready they’ll be to recognize those who are spreading smut.

By SEEMA MANAZIR

Since I wrote the comments condemning Samad Khurrum’s behavior, my email is filling up with hate mail, calling me rude names, not fit to be repeated, the politest being a Bomb Lover wishing that a bomb falls on me and my house.

Although I find Samad a young student’s behavior deplorable, but I still say it was not his fault entirely.

The real culprits who we should blame for the whole episode are others and they
have no love for Pakistan or its integrity, and as little love for ethics like honesty and decency. They go prowling to get youngsters of slightly low IQ Levels, who are generally starved of parental attention and love at home.Their parents have so little time for their children that they hardly ever find out what their children are getting into.

Old and experienced blog operators like SYED ADEEB employ them .The more abusive language the young writers use, the more they are praised and their articles are published and read when posted. Eventually these young minds start thinking that what they are doing is absolutely right. They are told they are getting famous and people who are exploiting them become their masters and their heroes.

On Internet, these young boys and girls encourage other friends to join them and the circle keeps getting bigger and bigger. Right now there are at least 20 blogs that I know of, being run and managed by a single man, accessing at-least tens of thousands of people. This enables these strange wicked people to undermine the reputation of Pakistan and generally act as a roadblock on our Road to Progress.

Unfortunately, some such people and journalist in our mainstream media also belong to the same class. GEO journalists were actually celebrating the day when Pakistan got kicked out of Commonwealth and was excluded from the rating list at Moody’s Index.

I had an interesting experience once when I tried to counter such blogs. The result shocked me as much as I am sure it will shock you.

I wrote a nice mail, pointing out what was happening, and since I was addressing youngsters, I advised them to pay attention to their studies, learn to be good human-beings and good citizens instead of indulging and wasting their time in such trivial pursuits.

In answer, I got a very abusive reply from a lady, rather rudely telling me to mind my own business, ‘Go find a man and pop a few kids’ to be exact. Anyway, I persisted, in my gentle way, in spite of threats that they will report me as a stalker. One of them told me that her father was in-charge of a Government Department, they had traced my IP Number and some guys would be visiting me soon.

My response was, ‘I would indeed like to talk to your parents, your father

At that point, I learned what really shocked me: This was no young kid. This lady claimed that she was a mature married woman in her thirties, AND A TEACHER by profession. All the other thirty-year-olds she knew used the same abusive derogatory language as her all the time. In fact, she considered me highly ignorant that I was not aware of it.

I just told her, ‘I am sorry, but not a single one of my acquaintances thirty-year old or older or younger uses this kind of language’. Birds of a feather flock together.

I also told her that now that I have found out that; it is a middle-aged woman and not the youngster as I thought she was I was totally disgusted and appalled and I would like to make sure that I kept my kids away from teachers like her. I did ask her the name of the school she taught at, which she did not give.

The only response I got was about 250 junk mails, some of which seemed to be addresses of pornographic sites, so I sat there deleting them, in case I opened one by mistake and ruined my Internet experience in the process.

I think Samad Khurrum’s behavior was quite despicable. But after finding out more about him, I am further disgusted. This should not surprise any one who has had a look at the blog Samad Khurram was running for SYED ADEEB.

It was just a part of an elaborate anti Pakistan campaign, trying to demean Pakistan’s reputation and hurl abuses at our President. The abusive language commonly used in the blog was amazing. You have to read it to believe it.

This blog along with SYED ADEEB’s other blogs were in the forefront in arranging and managing pro-judges protest rallies in Europe and America against President Musharraf calling him a ‘dog’ and a ‘dictator’ among other worse names when the President was on a tour of Europe to stop the campaign against Pakistan’s nuclear program and its role in the war against terrorism.

I hear that some time ago, Samad Khurrum was also found hacking into private computers. He didn’t refuse the scholarship, he just refused the award, which has no monetary value attached to it.

By the way, from his picture that I saw, he looks around 23 years of age, hardly a child who would be doing O levels. Shouldn’t he have completed his studies and been working by now? Can someone check out his age for me please? Because at 23, I see no big deal if a guy gets 7 A’s in a course designed for 16 year olds.

I would suggest that his American visa be cancelled, and he be sent back to study in Pakistan. His scholarship should be given to another student who can represent Pakistan in a better light in America.

Seema Manazir is a Pakistani commentator. She can be reached at seemamanazir@hotmail.com.

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