My Journey from the East and the Global South
This post aims to break writer’s block, speak to an international audience, and present my views in detail. #DebutPost
An opportunity that is not available in micro-blogging. I’m presenting a general overview here, but each will be discussed separately over the following posts in the coming days.
What am I aiming to publish?
I’m a digital nomad and freelance writer based in Islamabad, Pakistan; however, I am a nomad in all possible senses. I am an isolated individual at odds with society and the system I live in. Freelancers already lack opportunities in this part of the world due to a lack of access to financial services like STRIPE and PayPal, but that is not all. Our voices are intentionally shut because the global and local systems are threatened by them somehow. I want to keep sharing my viewpoints in detail over here. They’ll range from political economy, domestic politics, geopolitics, and personal development to societal issues people face in the modern society of the 21st century.
The post-pandemic world differs from the world we have lived in for the past thirty years (the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s). During the 2020s, knowingly or unknowingly, we interact simultaneously at three layers: personal-physical, local-state, and digital-global levels. I’ll be writing posts on personal development, followed by happenings at a local-state level that affect us and global-level events that affect us directly or indirectly.
A Journey of a Memoirist
We all want to be remembered for who we are, and so am I. I have a story to tell, but it is scattered. I’ll be sharing stories from my personal life as a Memoirist. As life is increasingly becoming unpredictable, keeping in view my health and events in domestic and global politics, I want to blog it out. At least people will know who I am when I am gone. I should not wait for a book now but rather share chunks of my life’s story in blog posts for people to connect the dots later on.
The theme of my memoir is “Dysfunctional,” and it will probably be titled the same. When I was born, there was a group who was of the view that I must be gotten rid of, but I survived. I survived for over three decades, and here I am as a writer wanting to share it with readers. I always believed “survival in itself is a success.” Finally, if there’s something I did successfully in life, it is to “survive.” Maybe I went through everything to share it and the way it felt.
Micro-Blogging
I have been exploring the digital landscape for quite some time now. I am surprised at the opportunities and contradictions out there.
Over the past eight months, I have been experimenting with micro-blogging as part of the experimentation process to understand the space I have for expressing myself. I am shadowban on all significant platforms like Linked In, Twitter, Meta, and Instagram. The irony of Shadowban is that we don’t know exactly who is doing it. They do it without informing us, but there are glimpses of it here and there in the form of reduced impressions and taking down of posts. I noticed two entities involved in silencing the voices that speak the truth: States and Social Media Corporations.
Surveillance
These shadowbans are meant to censor our views from reaching a wider audience, creating obstacles for specific authoritative policies of “states” aimed at oppression. We live constantly under surveillance, even if we are unaware of it.
Shadowban means there’s still some space available to us, primarily consisting of the followers we created over the past few years. So, I keep sharing my views on social media profiles, and readers might follow me to engage.
Domestic Politics in Pakistan
I published my previous story on May 09, 2022. It took me an entire year to gain the courage to try posting again on May 09, 2023, but it did not happen due to something that changed the lives of millions in Pakistan. I was writing the draft on Medium on May 09, 2023, and I decided to take a break from it. I switched to social media tabs and found an eruption of political turmoil in Pakistan, which affected my writing, work, and life. Pakistan has already had a political crisis since the regime change operation occurred in the first quarter of 2022. Still, the political temperature in Pakistan went on May 09, 2023, when the social media feeds were filled with news of violent protests erupting in Pakistan.
The last eight months of political turmoil in Pakistan have directly affected every citizen living within Pakistan, and it influenced my writing in an unanticipated manner. I had to regularly micro-blog now and fight the disinformation campaigns on digital landscapes. I did not do it intentionally but as a moral obligation to speak the truth in the age of deception and oppression. After all, we all are morally obliged as humans to talk about facts and defend them with our art and craft.
Global South must Unite
I’m from the East and the Global South. I have no intention of moving out from here, and the only option I am left with is to work for its growth and prosperity along with my personal development. Global South is underdeveloped, while the East is emerging. The Global South is a large geographical area of the world, and its underdeveloped status in socioeconomic and political terms also provides a unique opportunity. There’s a unique opportunity with the problems, that is, solutions. An ample opportunity presents itself in developing and integrating the Global South. The opportunity associated with integrating and developing the countries in the Global South depends on close cooperation and sharing available resources.
Nations in the Global South should move forward from the pitiful state well illustrated in World System Theory, where the world’s developed nations are at the Global System’s core while the developing and underdeveloped states are in the semi-periphery and periphery spheres. The only way to break away from the dependence of developing nations on the developed world is close cooperation between people and countries of the Global South in the digital age.
Perspective matters and a change in people’s perspective in the Global South is the place to start. I will constantly highlight issues facing people and countries in the Global South, coupled with opportunities for them to prosper. In the post-pandemic (COVID-19) world, people depend more on digital technologies for financial and non-financial communications. Digital World is integrated, and it is flat without the need for a passport or visa. Global South can make the most of it and benefit from the opportunities in the Global Services sector.
A recent expansion of BRICS hints at a possible opportunity with the Global South in this direction. I’ll frequently write on issues facing Global South and highlight success stories from the underprivileged part of the world.
What am I offering my readership?
There are two sorts of pieces I will be writing and sharing here:
1- As a memoirist, I provide personal viewpoints with my first-hand experience. It is about my life and the people and world in which I had a unique experience.
They may include domestic (local) political issues and my experiences with online and offline communities. The experiences are based on clashes with the norms and values of the local and global society.
2- As a research analyst, providing insight into critical issues around us that should be analyzed with alternative viewpoints for gaining informed opinions backed with empirical evidence. I worked long ago in think tanks and non-governmental organizations as a research analyst and social media manager, so that experience helps me in freelance writing.
The purpose is to engage with an audience beyond my immediate settings, and the space available to me in micro-blogs on major social networking sites (Linked In, X, Meta, and Instagram) is also limited. Furthermore, the issue of censorship also plays a vital role because authorities (government and non-government) mistake the short-form content with campaigning. I want to start discussing topics in greater detail now.
I’m also looking for support from readers because I am alone here, and the audience is my only friend now. I also look forward to freelance work and collaboration opportunities with people and entities from other parts of the world. Those interested can connect with me on Linked In, and we may discuss it further.
Thanks for reading my debut post.
