'Pakistanis Love Conspiracy Theories'

[Mercenary]

Retardation prevails. Perhaps, it's the milk.

Has any one person made a decent argument against me?

No.


Mercenary the abcd and some random Indian have tried to show their displeasure.


Come with facts boys, we still have a long road ahead of us.

Decent argument against you?

Your own posts are enough evidence that you require specialized help.

 

[notsuperstitious]

People will look for alternate explanations when they don't like the obvious ones. I mean some people, not all.

To say that there is no concerted effort to spread misinformation among pakistanis is just not true. Most of these blogs and websites (scores of them) and many of them named to decieve - like kabul times etc - they have the same common characters - like ahmed qureishi - who also uses about 20 other fake names, some western, some indian, some bangladeshi etc. The theme is always the same - towing the pak army line, never opposing them, always blaming the civilian govt, media, ''liberals'', seculars, india, usa, jews, afghans you name it - BUT pak army which is above blemish.

To say that this enterprise is not funded by pakistani agencies is hard to believe.

 

[Zarvan]

Although most Pakistanis have condemned the Taliban's shooting of 14-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai, a small section of society believes the incident was part of a 'US-Israeli conspiracy' against Islam and Pakistan...

Although most Pakistanis have condemned the Taliban's shooting of 14-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai, a small section of society believes the incident was part of a 'US-Israeli conspiracy' against Islam and Pakistan. "The CIA is behind the attack on Malala!" "Malala was a US agent!" "It is a conspiracy to defame the Taliban and Islam" - the social media websites Facebook and Twitter have been full of such posts and tweets this week. Most of the writers hail from a middle-class, educated background.

Many of Pakistan's liberal analysts have explained the phenomenon by saying that people love "conspiracy theories." They point out that in a country whose economy is in a shambles, where inflation and unemployment is higher than ever, which has a corrupt civilian government, where power shortages and suicide bombings are frequent, and where a lot of young people are desperate to leave in search of jobs and a better future, it is convenient for the people to blame the West for all their woes.

'Promoting secularism'

Malala Yousafzai was shot by armed men last week along with three other girls in the restive northwestern Pakistani city of Swat. Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the attack and said in a statement that the 14-year-old had been attacked because she was "promoting secularism" in Swat.

Yousafzai had campaigned for the right to education for girls and was a vocal critic of the Taliban. She won international acclaim writing about the atrocities committed by Islamists in Swat in a blog for the BBC Urdu service. Last year, she received a national peace award from the Pakistani government and was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by the KidsRights Foundation.

"This definitely is a tactic to divert our attentions from drone strikes," read one comment to the article "We are not Malala, we may be the Taliban," published in the Express Tribune, a liberal Pakistani newspaper. The commentator went on to say that "some people are just slaves to the media and have no ideology of their own."

"The Pakistani army is preparing the ground to launch an attack on the Taliban in Waziristan," said another commentator. "Malala was shot by the CIA agents. Don't blame the Taliban."

A Facebook post suggested that Malala was attacked so that Pakistanis would stop protesting against the anti-Islam movie, "The Innocence of Muslims."

Some Internet users have posted photoshopped pictures of Malala and her father, who were shown with US government officials at a meeting. The pictures of the dead bodies of young girls, allegedly killed in US drone strikes, were posted with captions such as: "Do they not deserve our sympathy?" or "Are the victims of US drone strikes not humans?" In one Facebook post, US President Barack Obama is shown laughing with officials of his government. The caption reads: "Sir, they still believe that the Taliban attacked Malala!"

Spreading confusion

Mansoor Raza, a Karachi-based researcher, told DW that people who were sympathetic towards the Taliban and other religious groups were using "counter-tactics to spread confusion."

"It is an organized effort to belittle Malala's shooting because most Pakistanis were unanimous in their condemnation against the Taliban."

Raza added that many Muslims felt defeated in today's world and these posts reflected the mindset of those who could not face the challenges of modernity.

"In my opinion, it is an attempt to shift responsibility to others," Hameed Satti, a psychologist in Islamabad told DW. "Instead of facing up to the bitter realities and dealing with them, we continue to blame others. It is our defense."

"Pakistanis hate the US but at the same time they are in awe of it," a Pakistani student in Karachi told DW on condition of anonymity. "They think that the US has supernatural powers like god. They believe it can do anything it likes; can make people disappear, can create floods, send agents from space." He also pointed out that many of those posting hate material against the US on social media sites would do anything to get a US visa.

Unequivocal condemnation

There are also many people in Pakistan who have condemned the Malala shooting unequivocally. Members of civil society have organized several demonstrations in support of Malala and the education of girls.

"Malala, you are like a light at the end of a dark tunnel," commented user Ankahi Baatein, in response to an article in Pakistan's English daily Dawn. "I pray that you come back more forcefully and keep raising your voice against illiteracy. May other Malalas join you in your struggle!"

Pakistani writer and activist Zahida Hina told DW that the Taliban militants were "barbarians" who did not believe in humanity.

"The 14-year-old Malala posed a threat to the Taliban in the sense that she was setting an example for other girls," she said. "The Taliban attacked her because they wanted to tell others that if they dared to stand against them, they would also meet the same fate."

Hina also criticized the governing Pakistan People's Party for failing to protect citizens but said that the main culprit was the state, which she said believes that Islamist extremists are "strategic assets" for maintaining influence in Afghanistan.

Malala is now in the UK where she was sent by the Pakistani authorities to receive further treatment and recuperate.

'Pakistanis Love Conspiracy Theories'

Conspiracies have taken place in the past and still do as far as this attack is concerned very bad thing happened but liberals tried their best to use it and bash Islam this thing also promoted lot of new theories and than suddenly every body talking about NW operation gave these theories lot of boost

 

[mfreak]

Conspiracies have taken place in the past and still do as far as this attack is concerned very bad thing happened but liberals tried their best to use it and bash Islam this thing also promoted lot of new theories and than suddenly every body talking about NW operation gave these theories lot of boost

Its conservatives that bash Islam, not liberals. Unless you are talking about liberals in Pakistan. Then they might be advocating religious freedom and equality, which extremists (you defined yourself like that) like you might perceive to be "religious bashing".

 

[Spring Onion]

Little voice


It has been an important week for me. I rarely watch television news as it’s too depressing, but on Thursday I tuned in by chance to watch the BBC. I immediately saw images of Pakistanis fill my screen. Not the usual rock hurling Pakistanis, irrationally shouting amidst flaming tyres, but gentle candle-lighting, beautiful Pakistanis with words of love and peace on their lips. It was UN International day of the Girl Child and the BBC chose to illustrate this with a story of what they termed a National Awakening in Pakistan, following the shooting of 14-year-old school girl, Malala Yousafzai. I was delighted at the apparent 24 hour flip from a narrative of “those Pakistanis are so barbaric they shoot their own school girls” to one of hope, resilience, and a more accurate reflection of the millions who reject such an act.


Lots has been written about Malala in the past week. Politicians have flocked to her bedside. Crowds have taken to the streets. She is known around the world and now has a lengthy Wikipedia entry. More importantly people have started to revisit her blogs written on the BBC Urdu website about her life as a schoolgirl in Swat.


We live in extraordinary times. Thanks to technology, we are able to read the inner thoughts of a child on the other side of the planet. From my Cambridge home I can follow “Secular Liberal Feminist Vegetarian Idealist Egyptians” on Twitter (@aliaaelmahdy) and even see Liberian blackboard blogger Alfred Sirleaf in action on Youtube. Where mass media is seen to have an agenda – individual voices appear somehow more credible. In fact globally well over a 100 million of us now write blogs and journalism has been impacted as mass media take to publishing blogs and opinion pieces (like this one) more and more.

The BBC’s Lyse Doucet (@bbclysedoucet) presented the Royal Television Society Lecture this week about how TV journalism is being threatened by the social media. I would like to offer two theories – firstly that the overwhelming focus on negative stories in traditional news is making people literally “switch off” and secondly that we are living in an age of the Little Voice – but not necessarily the weak voice. It is when the little voice is shared with masses disproportionate to expected scale of influence that they become change makers and opinion formers far greater than traditional news channels are capable of. Governments know it – the British Foreign Office has two less than 100 bloggers and it’s diplomats regularly Tweet. Violent extremists seem to know it – some allegedly offer courses in social media for sympathisers, and many attack little voice’s like Malala’s – proof that the little voice poses a powerful threat. Businesses know it too – now paying writers to produce “independent” corporate blogs and infiltrating our social online space encouraging us to “like” Coca-cola or BMW cars. The BBC themselves have faced criticism for investing heavily away from broadcast and into their online functions. Big corporations, organisations and governments have jammed the airwaves and seem to miss the ethos of social media being at it most powerful when it’s a little voice doing the talking. Perhaps Lyse could deliver another lecture on how social media is being threatened by the take over by the big guys.

Traditional journalism that presents news as “fact” is obliged to ensure that more than one credible source of information can back up the story. One criticism of social media is that there is no such obligation on a blogger or other online commentator. So the caveat when reading any blog, is to understand that it is one person’s story – not a news item. You can ask a hundred different people who all witnessed the same event what their experiences were and no two will say the same thing – the single-source argument can be unraveled when you scrutinise news presenting itself as fact or worse still “truth”.

Whilst we are busy sending 250 million tweets a day, and 800 million of us log into Facebook, we could honor Malala by thinking about how we might find our way through the masses of digital information and rediscover the authentic, credible individual voices out there. Don’t wait for a gruesome attack to read these quiet words. When we find them, we should pledge to listen to those little voices … not just online, but in real life too.

It’s gotten very noisy out there, and along with the rest of the world, I am still trying to fathom out what this hyper connectivity means. This week was important for me, because I found – via social media – a swathe of little voices in Pakistan and provided them with a platform in the UK press. It was my first paid UK non-opinion news article and it was a positive news story about Muslim Love in Pakistan.
Little voice | DAWN.COM

 

[Zarvan]

Its conservatives that bash Islam, not liberals. Unless you are talking about liberals in Pakistan. Then they might be advocating religious freedom and equality, which extremists (you defined yourself like that) like you might perceive to be "religious bashing".

Liberals in Pakistan are paid touts of USA and west and they bash Islam to make their western masters happy they have nothing to do with liberalism just talk crap

 

[mfreak]

Liberals in Pakistan are paid touts of USA and west and they bash Islam to make their western masters happy they have nothing to do with liberalism just talk crap

Depends what you consider bashing is what I meant. Even criticism can be considered bashing.

 

[Black Widow]

Liberals in Pakistan are paid touts of USA and west and they bash Islam to make their western masters happy they have nothing to do with liberalism just talk crap

Branding ppl kaffir, traitor and agent of CIA/RAW/MOSAD/KGB/MI6 is also loved by Paksitan. During Zia time, these liberals criticized war against Soviet, they were branded Anti-Islamic (Kaffirs) Agent of KGB etc...


If these liberals are paid tout of USA, then there is a possibility that Hardliners are paid tout of Taliban and terrorists, isn't it????

 

[uahmed]

Love of conspiracy theories is not a Pakistani phenomena. Listening to them is fun, believing a few of your choice makes the thought process a lot simpler. If facts contradict your logic, conspiracy theory is the weapon of choice to get rid of annoying facts.

In Pakistan, RAW used to be considered source of all evil. It got demoted after CIA entered the frame. In my days in India, I found that the same status given to ISI with some Indian media outlets running some crazy stories about it.

 

[notsuperstitious]

Love of conspiracy theories is not a Pakistani phenomena. Listening to them is fun, believing a few of your choice makes the thought process a lot simpler. If facts contradict your logic, conspiracy theory is the weapon of choice to get rid of annoying facts.

In Pakistan, RAW used to be considered source of all evil. It got demoted after CIA entered the frame. In my days in India, I found that the same status given to ISI with some Indian media outlets running some crazy stories about it.

When did you spend time in India?

 

[uahmed]

When did you spend time in India?

Mostly in 2007. Mostly in Bangalore and some in Delhi. And no, not as an ISI agent

 

[v9s]

Its a self immolating wound. Pakistanis will never do any soul searching to rectify the problems that exist within its country as they continue to blame others.

and you aren't doing the same?

Time to walk the talk.

 

[Umair Nawaz]

Although most Pakistanis have condemned the Taliban's shooting of 14-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai, a small section of society believes the incident was part of a 'US-Israeli conspiracy' against Islam and Pakistan...

Although most Pakistanis have condemned the Taliban's shooting of 14-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai, a small section of society believes the incident was part of a 'US-Israeli conspiracy' against Islam and Pakistan. "The CIA is behind the attack on Malala!" "Malala was a US agent!" "It is a conspiracy to defame the Taliban and Islam" - the social media websites Facebook and Twitter have been full of such posts and tweets this week. Most of the writers hail from a middle-class, educated background.

Many of Pakistan's liberal analysts have explained the phenomenon by saying that people love "conspiracy theories." They point out that in a country whose economy is in a shambles, where inflation and unemployment is higher than ever, which has a corrupt civilian government, where power shortages and suicide bombings are frequent, and where a lot of young people are desperate to leave in search of jobs and a better future, it is convenient for the people to blame the West for all their woes.

'Promoting secularism'

Malala Yousafzai was shot by armed men last week along with three other girls in the restive northwestern Pakistani city of Swat. Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the attack and said in a statement that the 14-year-old had been attacked because she was "promoting secularism" in Swat.

Yousafzai had campaigned for the right to education for girls and was a vocal critic of the Taliban. She won international acclaim writing about the atrocities committed by Islamists in Swat in a blog for the BBC Urdu service. Last year, she received a national peace award from the Pakistani government and was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by the KidsRights Foundation.

"This definitely is a tactic to divert our attentions from drone strikes," read one comment to the article "We are not Malala, we may be the Taliban," published in the Express Tribune, a liberal Pakistani newspaper. The commentator went on to say that "some people are just slaves to the media and have no ideology of their own."

"The Pakistani army is preparing the ground to launch an attack on the Taliban in Waziristan," said another commentator. "Malala was shot by the CIA agents. Don't blame the Taliban."

A Facebook post suggested that Malala was attacked so that Pakistanis would stop protesting against the anti-Islam movie, "The Innocence of Muslims."

Some Internet users have posted photoshopped pictures of Malala and her father, who were shown with US government officials at a meeting. The pictures of the dead bodies of young girls, allegedly killed in US drone strikes, were posted with captions such as: "Do they not deserve our sympathy?" or "Are the victims of US drone strikes not humans?" In one Facebook post, US President Barack Obama is shown laughing with officials of his government. The caption reads: "Sir, they still believe that the Taliban attacked Malala!"

Spreading confusion

Mansoor Raza, a Karachi-based researcher, told DW that people who were sympathetic towards the Taliban and other religious groups were using "counter-tactics to spread confusion."

"It is an organized effort to belittle Malala's shooting because most Pakistanis were unanimous in their condemnation against the Taliban."

Raza added that many Muslims felt defeated in today's world and these posts reflected the mindset of those who could not face the challenges of modernity.

"In my opinion, it is an attempt to shift responsibility to others," Hameed Satti, a psychologist in Islamabad told DW. "Instead of facing up to the bitter realities and dealing with them, we continue to blame others. It is our defense."

"Pakistanis hate the US but at the same time they are in awe of it," a Pakistani student in Karachi told DW on condition of anonymity. "They think that the US has supernatural powers like god. They believe it can do anything it likes; can make people disappear, can create floods, send agents from space." He also pointed out that many of those posting hate material against the US on social media sites would do anything to get a US visa.

Unequivocal condemnation

There are also many people in Pakistan who have condemned the Malala shooting unequivocally. Members of civil society have organized several demonstrations in support of Malala and the education of girls.

"Malala, you are like a light at the end of a dark tunnel," commented user Ankahi Baatein, in response to an article in Pakistan's English daily Dawn. "I pray that you come back more forcefully and keep raising your voice against illiteracy. May other Malalas join you in your struggle!"

Pakistani writer and activist Zahida Hina told DW that the Taliban militants were "barbarians" who did not believe in humanity.

"The 14-year-old Malala posed a threat to the Taliban in the sense that she was setting an example for other girls," she said. "The Taliban attacked her because they wanted to tell others that if they dared to stand against them, they would also meet the same fate."

Hina also criticized the governing Pakistan People's Party for failing to protect citizens but said that the main culprit was the state, which she said believes that Islamist extremists are "strategic assets" for maintaining influence in Afghanistan.

Malala is now in the UK where she was sent by the Pakistani authorities to receive further treatment and recuperate.

'Pakistanis Love Conspiracy Theories'

Look who is talking.

The thread comes from an indian source+ from an indian national in this forum

These r same ppl who say everything that happens in their country ISI n Pakistan is responsible. Even they said the same abt Samjhota Express+ the recent bombings in pune initially then they come to know that their own hand was in those.

Now the most funny thing is that now they have stared to themselves say that THE PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IN ANY CONSPIRACY R US.WOW that a shame.

I have reported this thread.

 

[pak-marine]

Look who is talking.

The thread comes from an indian source+ from an indian national in this forum

These r same ppl who say everything that happens in their country ISI n Pakistan is responsible. Even they said the same abt Samjhota Express+ the recent bombings in pune initially then they come to know that their own hand was in those.

Now the most funny thing is that now they have stared to themselves say that THE PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IN ANY CONSPIRACY R US.WOW that a shame.

I have reported this thread.

So what if it is coming from an indian , see what is said instead of who is saying.

 

[Umair Nawaz]

So what if it is coming from an indian , see what is said instead of who is saying.

Look at the purpose, the wording that is used it will not make us learn abt it n will not make us move on by accepting our mistakes of now n commit to ourselves that we dont do that again in the future.

What they have reported n r using this to more D-grade our nation n people then to learn from our mistakes by reading his artical more people will embarrassed then to learn in constructive way abt it. When we talk abt the same in their internal matters like this one then they say who r u to inter into our matters LOL im doing the same sir its our matter no one is defending that its a bad act from our part, but by reading such posts we will b more MAYUSS abt our people n society rather then change it to a civilized society.

Hope u understand Thanks.