Close down Orkut, Sack the teachers!

The Orkut debate continues, with Anushree wanting to pull the plug on the“I hate India” genre of groups. History is a great teacher, and I attempted to learn a bit. First off, here’s a perspective on overreaction from Herblock’s History, commenting on anti-subversive groups and the havoc they often wreak – even in civilized societies.
For those in a hurry, take a dekko at a telling cartoon by Herb Block, here. If you think clicking is a pain, just read on – this, a frightening illustration of overreaction and the impact thereof.

During the postwar anti-communist campaign hundreds of elementary and high school teachers were investigated and lost their jobs (emphasis mine), sometimes as a result of being named by proliferating "anti-subversive" groups and individuals. Some individuals compiled and circulated their own blacklists, which were accepted by frightened employers and casting directors who feared being blacklisted themselves if they sought facts and fair play. The motives of some self-serving or vindictive accusers were summed up by Herb Block in a phrase: "If you can't crush the commies, you can nail a neighbor."

Amongst those who believe subversive groups should be kept off the face of the earth must include the MI5, and you could get a glimpse of their view here in a 1994 speech by the then head honcho.

There are huge dangers in going after groups of people with special or different or unusual or (to us) unpalatable tastes. There are the dangers of jingoism, dangers of overreaction, and indeed, dangers of actually making a marginal group more popular by “victimising” them.
Brainwashing is a danger that Anushree alluded to. Impressionable minds can, indeed, be brainwashed by social networking groups on the net – but also off it. India provides great examples – where has Orkut or the Internet been used to disseminate information to attract and brainwash youth into the various insurgency groups that we have been witness to, and victims of?

The positive contributions of Orkut – such as students being able to discuss the merits and demerits of an educational institute that they have short-listed as a possible destination, as one example – are swept under the carpet.
One is not suggesting for a moment that people breaking the law of the land on social networking sites should be allowed to carry on, regardless. Find them and proceed against them within the limits of the laws of the land – as one would to groups that broke the law in the non-Orkut world.
But shut down Orkut or other sites of similar ilk? That’s like throwing away the baby with the bathwater.
Back to Herb Block. For God’s sake, let’s not nail our neighbours.

Orkut and the Ku Klux Klan

Thanks to the “I hate India” and similar groups, Orkut is taking a lot of flak in the media and outside, with a number of crazies asking for it to be shut down, regulated beyond imagination, and so on.
But Orkut is forever.
I am on no Orkut group. I once got onto a Ryze group, but did nothing with it other than post a rudimentary profile.
Orkut means nothing to me.
But it means a lot to my daughter.
She’s part of a number of groups on Orkut, including one that discusses Osho chappals. I swear that’s true.
And she Orkuts (no reason why it shouldn’t be a capitalized verb, if one can be Bangalored) for an hour or so each evening.
What she’s doing on the Internet is what another generation did outside of it. She’s catching up with like-minded people – not all of them anonymous and unknown. As time goes on, the group shrinks into grouplings and grouplets, tighter and tighter as the Orkuters find more and more common ground.
Objectors to Orkut should take a look at the Orkuts that we have had for years in the real world. Like the adda in Kolkata. Like the kitty parties anywhere in India. Like the Lion’s Club, like the Rotary, like chess clubs and carom clubs. Like the Laughter Clubs, like jazz societies and poetry readings and drama groups.
They’re all Orkuts.
And that’s the reason Orkut means nothing to me. I already am a groupie in a number of real life Orkuts. I have groups that I drink with, that I party with, that I work with, that I holiday with. I’m 45, and I already have all the Orkuts that I need.
My daughter is 18, still searching for her real life Orkuts. She’ll find them as she experiences life.
As for those who object to the “I hate India” kind of groups and to the pimping and the soliciting, may I remind them that they exist in the real world, too? Where they can, and do, cause a lot more trouble than in a virtual one?
We’ve had the Ku Klux Klan, we’ve had the Naxalbari movement, and we’ve had all shades of terrorists. And they met or meet in physical spaces, saw or see each other in the flesh and plotted or plot their crimes.
Rather than ban these groups on Orkut, one would have thought the authorities would be surreptitiously getting into these groups in order that they might have a better idea of those behind them and what they might be up to. Easier than phone tapping and satellite surveillance, one would think. Shut them down, and the struggle is harder.
On another note, the thought of the “I hate India” or the “I hate Pakistan” groups causing trouble is ridiculous – it’s like Dawood Ibrahim wearing a T-Shirt that says “I’m a Terrorist” and walking down Mumbai’s Marine Drive on a Sunday morning.
Orkut will have to defend – unnecessarily, in my opinion – that they are a danger to none. They will do so, and they will continue doing what they’re doing for a long time to come.
Because there’s one abiding reason why Orkut is forever.
It mirrors life.