Why are Pakistanis so Foreign? It’s the Americans’ Fault!

If you dug a hole through the earth somewhere in the heartland of the
United States of America, you would not end up in China, as the old
children's saying goes. Instead, you would end up in the Indian Ocean,
far from any continent. But the closest lands would be those of the
subcontinent: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The fact that these lands are literally as far away from the U.S. as
possible is a bit of an irrelevancy. For one thing, most Americans
have little to no geographical skills, and so to them Norway and
Newfoundland are as distant as India and Nepal. Second, most
Americans, like the native peoples of the subcontinent, are Caucasian
in descent. In the U.S., greater than 80% of the population is
Caucasian, if we include those of European descent, those of mixed
European descent (many Hispanics), and those of Eurasian descent with
white skin (like myself and many other Russians and Slavs). Third,
there are many subcontinentals living in the U.S. "melting pot", many
highly assimilated into the "society." Subcontinentals compare
favorably with some of the more successful of the U.S immigrant
groups, such as the Slavs, the East Asians, the Italians and the
Irish.

So, why is it that the American cultural majority (meaning
non-subcontinentals) has this perception that the subcontinentals
are so different? I will focus on the Pakistanis, but the same may be
said of the other Caucasians of the subcontinent.

At first (causal) glance, the difference is glaring. One need only
peek at the constitutions of the two nations. The preamble of the
U.S. Constitution speaks of forming a perfect union, establishing
justice and tranquility, defense, liberty and posterity. God (or
Allah) is never mentioned. The entire preamble is one sentence, 52
words.

The preamble of the Pakistan Constitution, however, fills an entire
page. It is saturated with allusions to "Almighty Allah," to a
patriarchal "Him," to the "requirements of Islam as set out in the
Holy Quran and Sunnah," to "our responsibility before Almighty Allah."
It is permeated with religious allusions: here justice and equality is
"enunciated by Islam." Here Pakistan has a "rightful and honored place
amongst the nations of the world."

Different language. But, are the countries really as different as it
seems? Not necessarily. First, imagine the U.S. as an impoverished
nation, with more than 150 people per square kilometer in a land
filled with deserts and mountains. Imagine a U.S literacy rate of 37%
(well, perhaps that is not so hard to imagine!). Imagine a nation
barely 50 years old, sharing a long boundary with an equally powerful
and more populous neighbor (India). Imagine a nation with a GNP of $60
billion maintaining an army of nearly 600,000 with 500,000
reserves. Then, and only then, compare the two nations. And do not use
the religious argument: compared to Western Europe, the U.S. is a
God-fearing, Puritanical society in which 51% of the populace believes
the Bible to be the word of God. Allah never had it so good, perhaps.

The key issue for the perceived difference is, perhaps,
hegemony. Currently, as the only Superpower (and global bully!), the
U.S. is intent upon global hegemony. Consequently, any other power
(such as China or the EC) intent upon challenging that supremacy must
be watched with paranoia. Any other power (such as Pakistan or India:
note the recent elections in the latter subcontinental nation!) intent
on distancing itself from the Superpower political scene (these
nations were conveniently delegated to the Third World during the
Cold War), must be viewed as different, frightening, unfriendly. It
has less to do with religion than with politics and alignment-ship.

Sure, the Pakistan Constitution is rife with acknowledgments to
Allah. But, U.S. history is an unambiguous collage of religious
superciliousness and blatant sanctimony.

Try "Manifest Destiny" on for size. It fits the U.S. nicely. It allowed
the U.S. to go to "war" with a then-medieval, corrupt and weak state
(Mexico), expropriate nearly three million square kilometers (almost
four times the size of Pakistan, nearly the size of India), and all
because God favored the expansion of the U.S. It allowed the
U.S. government to institutional the slaughter (rather than the
assimilation) of hundreds of native tribes (so that reservations and
their innate paradox still exist). It allowed the U.S. to justify
plucking Puerto Rico and the Philippines from the eyes of Spain. It
has indeed been a handy religious rationalization for military
supremacy.

So, why does the U.S. care if Pakistan is nominally obedient to a
relatively mature Allah (compare Him to the Allah of Algeria or Iran,
for example)? Why can't Pakistan’s claim to Kashmir be manifest
destiny? Why can't a country with a 37% literacy rate and half the
population of the U.S. rammed into a state the size (and with eerily
similar climate, land constitution and resources) of Texas want more?

The four H's come to mind. Hegemony. Hypocrisy. History. Hype. The
U.S. has a history of hypocrisy, a history of hype (usually
self-hype), and a history of marginally justified expansion of
hegemony. Never one to kick the little guy, the U.S. would prefer to
befriend the little guy, JUST SO LONG AS HE STAYS LITTLE.

And so, perhaps, the strangeness of the subcontinent (in the
U.S. mind) stems from fear. In all the long histories of all the great
peoples of the earth, nothing is so hard to do as stay on top. From
Hittites to Hitler, anyone on top eventually tumbles down. Everyone
knows that someday the U.S. will fall from its zenith. Will it be
China? Will it be India? Will it be the decline and fall of
nationalism (at long last!)? I don't claim to know this, but I do know
that the fear is ill-founded. Hiroshima and Nagasaki poignantly
elucidated the fact that post-modern warfare is not worth the
effort. Let the tribalism of nationalism fall to the collectivism of
globalism! All that is required for the U.S. (and others presently on
top) to succeed in the future is cooperativism. Not manifest
destiny. When the world is "one people," only then can the future be
one without fear.

But, for now, the peoples of the subcontinent are strange,
different. Maybe affluence is the cure. After all, the Japanese and
Taiwanese don't seem all that different!