Its (almost) over. The deplorable and horiffic Mumbai terrorist attacks are under control and the last of the militants has been killed, according to reports. Our prayers go out to everyone in Mumbai, and especially those directly effected by these attacks. Mumbai will come out of this, but now India is dealing with terror on a massive scale, just we are in Pakistan.

Fanatics are all over South Asia, using religion as a false basis for violence. First in Karachi, then in Islamabad and now Mumbai. This is now a regional problem and can be solved with government and intelligence agencies putting aside fears and cooperating. A strong willed population and determined authorities=a militant’s worst nightmare (esp since they were told that would never happen.) 

In this entire saga, one must notice the important role of blogs, tweets, flickr uploads, and other social media (Mahalo, Wikipedia) where ordinary citizens have been more proactive and sometimes have facts more helpful than the networks like CNN, BBC,etc. Citizen journalism that one can argue went mainstream in India after the Asian Tsunami has now come of age in South Asia, and interestingly much faster than in the US, Europe,etc. Maybe this has to do with our fundamental mistrust of state controller and large new networks  . The People’s voice is now digital.

As South Asians we have too many times been lied to by those in power, we would rather listen to each other than the authorities,right? and Web 2.0 tools let us do that. twitter, flickr, wordpress,blogs, these are now fundamental tools that allow for greater, faster communication than a television.

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