Here is why !
You have not heard of Rehani Carimjee till a few days ago. You still do not know her personally. Never corresponded with her.
From whatever information you can gather through web searches, she appears to be an Ad and technology professional living in Colombo. You gather the impression that she is an introspective and perceptive individual with her own particular interests in life: Ads, web programming, computer software and tech gizmos.
And she is a blogger. That means that like most of you bloggers, she is a person with a full-time job and a family to look after, taking a free hour or two off her daily routine to verbalize on the net the stuff that she feels passionate about, putting her own resources, time and money into that effort.
Why does she blog? All of you bloggers know the answer to this one. Of course she writes to be read, to be appreciated, to be challenged, engaged, stimulated, to take a stand, to defend what she believes is good, and to oppose what she believes is evil. And of course, she writes to express her emotions, to bond with those who share her likes and dislikes, and to get off her chest matters that bother her a lot.
She may not be perfect, like none of you is either. Perhaps she doesn’t get her facts right at times. Perhaps on occasion she may appear to be driven by prejudice, or illogic or unreason.
She expresses her honest-to-goodness opinion, untainted. No hidden agendas, no devious games, no anonymous fuss, no hankering after Blogger of the year awards.
It is perhaps these very qualities of Rehani Carimjee — of your newbie blogger — that frightened the living daylights out off some extremists. Unnerved by her post here, some slapped her with hate comments. Mild hate comments have been posted whilst others have been moderated and withdrawn coz they are just sick.
Assume, for argument’s sake, that her posts are incorrect; that there indeed is no factual basis to the persistent rumours that Buddhist can eat meat. A liberal interpretation of Rehani's (supposedly factually baseless) blog post would then mean that she created it without intending malice, as a Srilankan pained by what she, like thousands of other Srilankans, think is inappropriate blatant belief.
In the light of this liberal interpretation of Rehani's criticism, then, EXTREMISTS have either the option of ignoring it , or of issuing their own response to it “setting the record straight”, as they no doubt would like to put it.
But, no. Politically correct Extremists wanted to silence Rehani through blatant threats and ill comments.
It stands to reason then that extremists don’t really respect people’s right to free speech. It treats critics as enemies, and goes all out to suppress their dissent, unabashedly taking advantage of:
a) the strength it enjoys as a big extremist, with its pool of ass kissing supporters
b) the weakness of individuals like Rehani, of most of us bloggers; our inability to cope with the emotional stress of unwanted online battles over issues not central to our lives
c) the sloth in our societal system
It is important to think of the consequences of letting trolls get away with tasting bloggers’ blood. Our writing is spontaneous, unburdened by undue self-awareness, and by the fear of consequences. That is the way it should be, as long as you truly are writing without malice, and are not lying to yourself about it. Indeed, I believe this ought to be the style of writing of “professional” journalists who write for big media houses too, except that they have the advantage of getting proof-read and vetted by legal before they get published. Bloggers don’t have that advantage. You are your own legal department, without any legal training.
True, bloggers have responsibilities too, and they must also apply discretion and sense of judgement. But the line between “applying discretion” and “applying internal censors” is thin. Now onwards, if ever you dare to write openly , I bet you’ll be looking over your shoulders constantly, afraid of getting a hate comment slapped on you. In short, your writing will not be your writing anymore.
So here’s what I suggest you extremist anonymous.
* Stop reading my blog, if you haven’t already. It’s a crappy blog anyway. Mediocre, theatrical, overly activist and tom boyish.
* Spread the word. Tell your mother and grandmother about Rehani, even if they are not in the habit of reading blogs.
* Try some meditation. That's good for your mind, body and soul.
* If all above didn't work, then try the obvious. Do a favour for mankind. Save Oxygen. Die !!!
Thank you.