Boreal

Blasphemy: the Brave and the Cowardly

YouTube and Katy Perry's Dark Horse

Pakistan’s first woman sentenced to death for blasphemy loses appeal … two top Pakistani politicians who sought to intervene on her behalf were gunned down.

Lahore, Reuters, Oct 16, 2014

Katy Perry 'Dark Horse' video causes offence after featuring burning 'Allah' pendant

Muslim groups claim new video is 'blasphemous'

The Independent, UK February 26, 2014

A woman is accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death in Pakistan. Two brave men died trying to save this woman. Too bad they could not do what the cowards at YouTube did, and pretend it never happened.

Pop-culture in the 1960s and early seventies was very much about injustice.

For a brief moment in time, there was a glimmer of hope that the YouTube generation was about to get a social conscience of its own. Then, YouTube edited Katy Perry's Dark Horse music video, removing images where a man wearing an innocuous pendant with the name of a god famous for his misogyny dissolves into sand.

It did this within twenty-four hours of a small thin-skinned group of the prejudicial god's admirers – less than .006% of an age-of-consent population of more than 1,000,000,000 Muslims – saying it was blasphemy.

It is really a matter of where you live not principle, as demonstrated by YouTube and its editing of Katy Perry's Dark Horse music video.

If we don't stand up to accusations of blasphemy in our society where opposition is not a death sentence, we can't fault others for not doing the same where it is.

Women should be allowed to show their displeasure for a deity who considers them no more than chattel to be used, abused and disposed of at their male owner's leisure and not be found guilty of blasphemy, which YouTube's actions imply.

A bad day for women and freedom of expression! YouTube and its owner Google should be ashamed for what they did and the horrible precedent they may have set. The cowardly new world of Uzza may be closer than we think.

Bernard Payeur