[governance] Bangladesh Govt blocks YouTube

[Riaz K Tayob]

I am not so sure I would go for global consensus on issues like this. It 
is precisely difference that needs to be accommodated. It is one thing 
for muslims to take umbrage at these matters, quite another to insist on 
their extra-territoriality. Like others should "tolerate" muslims, 
muslims need to tolerate the other as well - and here the function of 
power matters... Like it is fine for France to ban Nazi memorobelia 
(because of it is history and values) it should be ok for muslim 
countries to take REASONABLE measures to protect their values in their 
polity. But global law, I am not so sure...

The issue is however more complex than that... with the Rand Corporation 
and the State Dept funding its version of Islam (so much for separation 
of state and religion, with the usual Israeli exception in Western 
discourse), and the retracted "Crusade", the context that muslims find 
themselves in something else, perhaps much like that of Japanese in the 
US during WWII.

FOE is a precious right, and essential to a meaningful polity, but that 
does not mean there are no taboos... while egregious insults are 
certainly contraindicated in many muslim societies there is also a 
healthy historical tradition of satire and academic (or like critique) 
of the sacred.

With the Western self-righteousness on this issue (notwithstanding 
double standards i.e. everyone can build any religious house they like, 
but not muslims in Switzerland for eg) it would be hard to get a 
reasonable debate with the muslims (first for the west to understand the 
relationship with the Prophet... and second for the muslims to 
understand the historical trajectory of Western rights as against the 
"Church")...

Let us also remember that the context of the Rushdie affair cannot be 
ignored. This was a time when the US, UK and much of EU was 
clandestinely and openly supporting WMD being used against Iranians. So 
debarred from context, it is easy to talk about rights. In context, the 
whole situation is fraught with difficulty...

On 2012/09/17 11:19 PM, Faisal Hasan wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Bangladesh govt. blocks youTube from today in order to avoid impending 
> violence.  This is a serious concern for us who advocate that "content 
> filtering is not a solution rather it should be removed at the 
> source." We understand that this is an issue of "freedom of 
> expression"  and due to the corresponding legislation Google is not 
> being able to remove it.
>
> On behalf of the Internet Society Bangladesh Dhaka Chapter may I 
> request chapter delegates and people concerned with Internet 
> governance issues to think about ways how we can address this sort of 
> issues in future. There should be a global consensus about the content 
> that fuels deadly violence shouldn't be hosted by anybody, content 
> that has been flagged by thousands of people should be removed, 
> content about which one third of the worlds population has unequivocal 
> objection can definitely set aside from other contents.
>
> I guess most of you will agree that this is a very sensitive issue and 
> Muslims around the world are deeply shocked by the violence thats 
> being erupting all over the world killing innocent lives as well as by 
> the fact that the content still stays at the source.
>
> Kind Regards
> Faisal Hasan, PhD
> Chapter President
> Internet Society Bangladesh Dhaka Chapter
>


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