I Am A Pakistani

27th Nov'08. Orange County, CA.

It’s Thanksgiving Day. America is grateful today .Their reasons may differ but their sentiment does not.

Mumbai is writing in pain, drenched in blood. Gratitude is a distant emotion there.

I feel neither gratitude nor pain. All I feel is an escalating numbness as I watch The CNN breaking news coverage over and over again.

I was informed of the attacks a day earlier by an American friend whose call I missed. She wanted to let me know how upset she was by what she saw on the news and then wished me happy Thanksgiving in the same breath. It was a thoughtful gesture.

I turned on the television and could not take it for more than half an hour. My courage fails me. Since then I have resorted to the news updates over the internet. They are brief and less graphic.

I recall 9/11. It was an ordinary afternoon in Karachi when I had returned from college and was about to take my afternoon nap. By sheer co incidence, I switched on the TV and saw a plane crashing into the first tower of the World Trade Center. I thought it was a scene from a movie. Ironically, I have been unable to escape the reality of that irreversible act of extreme violence to this day.
I am a Pakistani, Muslim Woman.
I am discriminated against on all three accounts; yet, I have proudly and readily claimed these labels because they are an essential part of my being.
I AM these labels.

I was brought up by my paternal grandmother who had emigrated from India during Partition. I have known the soil of India in my soul because of my love for the woman who carried it in her heart. She introduced me to the literature and the arts of the sub continent. She instilled traditions in me that she had inherited from her ancestors. She created her India in her new home. She brought her soil with her. I have wanted to visit Mumbai since I was a child. I have snuck off in the late hours of the night to my friends’ houses to watch soppy Indian movies. I attribute my love of film to a healthy dose of Bollywood. I have defended and promoted Indian films even when my Indian friends have not. My closet is full of beautiful gifts that my friends have brought from their visits to this fascinating country.
Yet, I am not a Hindu Indian.

I have been in the US for the last two years on a Fulbright scholarship. I have found an intellectual belonging in this country that is non existent in Pakistan. It is a country that has given me great freedom of thought and close friendships with people from all over the world. I have discovered unknown facets of my personality in this diverse, rich culture. It is a society that has been founded on principles that I strongly identify with and innately respect.
Yet, I am not a Christian American.

These are countries that I carry in my heart but do not carry their passports. I am a threat to the safety of their people. I am a threat to my friends.

I am a Muslim, Pakistani, Woman.
I come from the land of terrorists. I come from the land of Islamic militants.

Since 9/11 hundreds of people have died in my country and are still dying. Some because of our alliance with the US, some because of our animosity with India, but mostly because of our nurtured tradition of Islamic militancy -a product of massive poverty, illiteracy and failed governance.

The responsibility of the attacks was attributed to my country.In an instance, without a second thought.
For seven years we have been considered responsible, when our blood has fed the “War against Terror.�

Today I have an unbearable desire to shed these labels of religion, nationality and gender that I have guarded for so long.
They are not a source of pride to any of us- Indian, Pakistani or American.
They are bleeding divisions that have robbed us of our humanity over the years in the quest for global dominance. They have turned us into scared rats running into our wretched holes hiding from the enemy within.
Whose blood is more important?
Whose war is it anyway?
And to what purpose?

28th Nov’08
It’s Black Friday.
America shops block buster deals in a recession fueled by the war.
Mumbai Siege is under control with 155 dead and 283 wounded.
And a suspected US strike kills 2 Pakistanis taking the death toll to… I have lost count.
And life goes on.
Just a little bit worse for all of us with our sacredly guarded boundaries and proudly nurtured labels.
More guns, anyone?