Friday, November 20, 2009

Unfriended.

I heard of the word unfriended for the first time early this year, when a friend of mine called me to inform me that her highschool buddy unfriended her on Facebook. It sounded very strange to my ears. What exactly is unfriend? I mean, how do you unfriend a friend and why would you do it?

It turned out that unfriend is a word that people use today to mean that your name had been deleted from someone else´s contact list. Unfriending means deleting someone from your network.

This made me think about the quarrels around the world. The religious conflicts (although some say it´s social) in Northern Ireland - the IRA and the British. The Hinduist India and Moslem Pakistan. Israeli Jews and Palestinian Moslems. Wouldn´t it be nice if we could just unfriend all the miseries that these century-old wars had brought to mankind?

This brings me to the famous Dutch parliament member Geert Wilders. In March last year, Wilders released a 10-minute film, Fitna, on the internet where he alternated verses from the Qur'an with footage of terrorist atrocities committed around the world.

As expected, Moslem activists had called for Wilders to be prosecuted under the blasphemy laws for having argued that Islam was incompatible with personal freedoms and Western democracy.

Instead, the Dutch government scrapped the 1930s blasphemy law in favor of what they call, strengthening the current anti-discrimination legislation. They said that religion will not be given a privileged place above free speech and freedom to express without censorship.

From their standpoint, I understand the desire of the government to maintain freedom of speech among their people.

But what about hurting the sensibilities of other people, from other cultures? Does that still count? I mean, who is going to be held responsible when people start imparting half-truth information? Can we unfriend them? LOL

6 comments:

~ Lopa said...

Ohhh wow, after a loooong time .... where were you !!!

See who is talking here, better i keep mum ! hehe

Yup, It is so easy to un-friend anyone ( btw this is the first time i heard this word, on your blog, unfriending someone hehe ) from your social network and rest in peace, hope all these world problems/ conflicts were that easy to solve !

Droomvla said...

Hello, Lopa. :) I was hibernating for the coming winter months but then again, I realised that it was simply too soon. LOL

buday said...

Since I'm not on Facebook or any of those social networks where you are sometimes FORCED to get reacquainted with people from way, waaaay back (pati mga tawo na dili mo na ngani madumduman an pamayhon), I've never had to "unfriend" anyone.
Mayad ngani kay "unfriend" an Oxford's New Word of the Year. Kun "poke" baga, e payt siguro katarawa san mga Pinoy, hehe.

Droomvla said...

@buday: Good for you! Ako, adik sa farmville. hahahaha

I didn't that unfriend is Oxford's new word of the year. Thanks for the info. Makunswelo talaga an poke. HAHAHAHAA

Anna said...

"Unfriend" sounds brutal. Bagan mas gusto ko man gihapon an "nag-ulian nin kandila," hehehe

Droomvla said...

@Anna: Amo talaga. :D Kumusta na an uma mo? lol