Pakistan, precisely Islamabad. I arrived two days ago, despite the cyclone Perth I landed on Sunday morning. A person was waiting for me. A small van took me and drive me in front of the Fort Knox of all hotels. A huge white building with a security system that has not exception. 

I walked the door and entered a 1000 nights environment. We, my friends, colleagues and companions are here for a feminist tech exchange using digital story, a means for voicing our diversity and advocate for our freedoms. Yes, the small, every day freedoms that are very often denied.

We arrived from different part of the world: south africa, cambodia, philippines, bosnia herzegovina and pakistan: karachi, lahore, islamabad. We are here to learn from each other, to use the power of new technologies for the transformation of ourselves, individuals, activist and citizens of the global village and the transformation of the ones around us. We talk about violence against women, we names things, we talk about been safe and having safe spaces. And it's at this point that the paradox of security hit me.

Staying outside, in the big open protected hall, I look at the security men. They stand, move silent above us all with their guns. They are protecting us, the foreigners and the locals from the outside enemies. For this reason the road in front of the hotel has only one lane, the other is closed. Guards at the door check in any vehicle and person. They protect us from the outside enemy, but once again, listening to the stories, the enemy comes from the inside world.

Fathers that does not act as fathers, brothers that does not act as brothers, husbands that does not act as husbands, teachers that does not act as teacher, school-mate that does not act as school-mate, friends that does not act as friends. I look at their guns, and the paradox of my safety and the safety of my friends into their hand sounds as a bitter Balkan paradox.

A black ironic joke that is the bell in my ear, the scream in my hearth. The enemy, here in Pakistan as there in my Balkans, is too often coming from the inside world for the rest there are ghosts of an obsessive compulsory surveillance that is ready to raise wall even in the virtual spaces.