Abdul doesn’t talk to his friend Ram these days. Christine also quarreled with her best friend Amina. And the apple of discord is Facebook.
Nowadays, people widely use Facebook for the facility of making publicity, sharing thought, pictures, and videos as well which makes it even more popular. Though it’s helpful to promote a great cause, some people use this prospect in a negative way.
As things are easy to share, often people use this facility for spreading rumors. Mostly the rumors are violent or hate speech that is offensive to a particular religion, gender, nationality, or ethnicity.
For example, some pictures of burnt or injured people have been circulating on Facebook for last few months. The captions say that those people are Christians and they were burnt by Muslims in Africa. Another similar picture said that the injured people were Muslim and they were injured by some Hindus in India.
Another popular picture is of the Holy Kaaba, the most sacred site of the Muslims, on which, sometime Lady Gaga and sometime a swine is placed. The caption says that the pictures were made by some Jewish people.
Of course these pictures offend us as we, Asians, are quite sensitive about our religion. But sometime, our sensitivity leads us to an abusive approach. As a result, we express our anger through making vicious comments where we use swear words that we would not like to utter in public.
Some of us even share those pictures with other friends in facebook and ignite the same feelings among them as well. And then, some more comments, some more sharing. In this process, friends who belong to the religion blamed in the caption also feel miserable and sometime angry to the people who share.
We don’t even stop here. After seeing those pictures, we make generalizations, like— Muslims are cruel, India is not safe for Muslims, Jewish people are sinister, and so on. Before making this generalization, we don’t even look for the accuracy of the picture.
Is there any evidence given that approves the picture? Is there any reliable source or link mentioned with the picture where we can find news about the incident described in the caption? Is there any proof which confirms that Jewish people made that insulting picture of the Holy Kaaba?
The answer is always, “NO.” because If you go for further research, you will never find an evidence that will approve the picture.
So, why do we become so excited to see things that are not facts that have no authenticity? In particular, why don’t we consider the positive aspects of people while making generalizations?
Matter that upsets more is the continuation of these kinds of posts. We need to prepare our mind to face these things regularly, but let’s not allow them to affect our mind, let’s not give any response to them, let’s not make any oversimplification. If we do so, at least the abusive posts will not appear to others and they will be saved from
being affected too.
Facebook is a website where we get to know people from diverse background, country, and ethnicity. It gives an opportunity to form unity and brotherhood among the people of different parts of the world. People use it for communication, not for abusing a religion, or a nationality. Moreover, whoever is responsible for making those kinds of posts can’t have any religion at all. So, let’s not allow them bother us and keep the harmony among our friends.
I am not going to let them create any friction between me and my friends. What about you?
fmoriam 