Reaction to the Lawn Billboards in Karachi

As soon as the arrival of summer, the whole city was filled with the billboards which are being used for the promotion and advertisement of the female lawn clothing. This time many lawn manufacturers had appointed out of the box marketing techniques and filled the whole city with the pictures of female model showing lawn prints on their body. Since the start of the first billboard placed by a garment manufacturer the competition started and then one after another all clothing brands put their billboard on the streets. They are of various sizes, some are small that are placed on all the poles along the whole street, while some are huge, irrespective of the size they have all in one thing common and that is the picture of female models, in immodest clothing.

Normally Pakistani environment is modest, people have values and they can compromise to some extent, but yet enough is enough, very soon the reaction form the local public has been seen the social media was filled with the criticism on this boards vulgarity, some protest has been done, but the major thing which we have seen is the two major actions.

One, in counter to the lawn billboards, an organization Working Women Society (WWS) has placed billboards at various points in the city, which shows small meaningful messages like, “Kapray Becho, Ghairat Nahe” (Sell Garments, Not Morals), “We appreciate those who so not use female model in their advertisement”, and many similar sentences. Another activity shown by the Tanzim e Islami, they also placed some boards in the city central points to convey their message on the said issue.

Two, another reaction shown from the public against the billboards, people noticed there are many boards in the city with female model on them in improper clothing are blackened. Overnight many billboards have been blackened by permanent ink. This was another reaction in counter to the immodest billboards, which show pure aggression from the public that they want no more immodest billboards.

According to the Hadith by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) he mentioned three level of belief when a person sees a wrong act:

The highest level of Eeman, stop it by hand (i.e. by force)

Second level, if you cant stop it by hands, stop it by word

Third and the lowest level of Eeman, if you have no courage to stop it by word, then in your heart you must believe it as inadequate act 

In the fight against the modest and immodest, the good the bad, the liberal and the conservation, we have to see that what degree of Eeman (belief) we are following. Where we are standing, the highest or the lowest, or if we are included in this act, it will be lower than the lowest. Think!