KARACHI: More than 500 young individuals gathered at Zamzama Park to conduct what can officially be declared as Pakistan’s first Freeze mob. These youngsters collected at the park and froze for five minutes, holding VOTE flyers in their hands.
“The aim of this activity was to increase youth awareness pertaining to getting-the-vote-out,” said Hazan D, director at ActOne, Karachi’s oldest center of arts and wellness.
The freeze mob was conceptualized and coordinated by ActOne, with numerous partners facilitating the process such as Origami in Lahore, fm89, and student organizations such as Rahnuma at the Indus Valley School and Jaag Mere Talib-e-Ilm at Szabist.
The freeze mob was conducted simultaneously in three major cities, Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. In Karachi, it was held at Zamzama Park. In Lahore, it was held at Liberty roundabout and in Islamabad it was held at Jinnah Super.
QUOTE from Mehreen Rana. “Activities such as the Freeze mob are extremely important in getting the word out and in pumping up the youth for a cause as important as getting the vote out,” said Rana. The sole objective of this activity to make people realize that elections is not a time to freeze. “I want this message to hit home hard,” said Hazan D. “The upcoming elections are not a time to freeze. They are a time to get out and vote.”
This was a purely no political activity and no political names were involved as supporters etc. The close overlap with Imran Khan’s jalsa is completely co-incidental.
People were informed of the time of the freeze mob in advance through a radio campaign, a viral facebook campaign, and word-of-mouth. Student organizations all across Pakistan were involved in getting the word out about this activity.
Freeze mobs are a relatively new phenomenon all over the world. Recently in honor of the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, a freeze mob was conducted in the middle of Times Square in New York City. But the Pakistan freeze mob may just be the first time such an activity was conducted anywhere in the world for political reasons.
