Culture Jam

strangely written and I dont get the point...unless the point was to point out the kinds of uninformed questions desis get from westerners...ok so they ask dumb questions sometimes...not nearly as dumb as the kind of questions I get when I go to Pakistan...

strangely written and I dont get the point...unless the point was to point out the kinds of uninformed questions desis get from westerners...ok so they ask dumb questions sometimes...not nearly as dumb as the kind of questions I get when I go to Pakistan...

RE Syd #7
Oooh the desis...some of them are responsible for giving the impression that we come from this absolutely wretched places...fawning over plastic containers as if it is the epitome of technological advancement....

Before `98 the mention of Pakistan drew glazed stares. Wah ?. Huh ?. Duh, where`s that ?.
Do you have a lotta camels ?. Since 1998 every maja khaja in the US has come to know
that Pakistan had made `The Bomb`. The one and only Islamic bomb.

Despite what Dr. Hoodbhoy preaches on these pages, a bully, like the US only respects a
show of force. Same with its citizens. You could tell them that you make pretty little watches
and chocolates and walkmans...boring. They don`t care. You have the bomb that could take
out one of their cities...HELLO!.

I am certainly not suggesting that a bomb takes precedence over economics and democracy
but it affords you a healthy respect among the big boys.

The Afghan war coverage in the US did not help. Now they`ve started confusing us with the
Afghanis and Palestinians, dumb as they are....Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine...``I thought
you were from Palestine``. No, I said PA-kistan (you moron).

The British colonizers went out and colonized people. Americans have had the advantage
that people from all over the globe come to them, to be colonized. Why should they bother
learning about us, when we wish to be like them ?. HaiN ?.

Ana,
It seems many of us have been asked such absurd questions, sometimes it angers me but mostly it amuses me - thinking that these fine folks really see darkness beyond their comfortable cocoons of general prosperity, that is, when they bother to let their minds venture that way at all.

What`s funnier is how the desis born and brought up often tend to think the same way, relatives here used to ask me when I was new here, ``beta school mey english ka koi masla to nahi hai, samajh wagheria to aa jaati hai na?`` I used to be dumbstruck. I wanted to tell them I know it better than the angrez here themselves, but a smiley ``nahi jee`` was all I bothered to spit out. Anyway, I hope people like you and me and many others won`t lose our fairly neutral perspectives by becoming subjects to new prejudices gained in our comfy environs. It would somehow be ironic.

OoOoOo, even got asked ``Do you have cities and towns in Pakistan?`` No woman, we live as cannibals in jungles but the west`s wind suddenly and magically transforms us. Jeez.

syd...
try `do you have running water in pakistan?` or `do they have toilets in pakistan` or `how is it that you speak english so well?`

Re: Comparing west to the east

What we have in our culture cannot be shown as easily as pointing to a structure. Sure, we don`t have wide, fancy roads. But we carry our hearts on our sleeves, if we could only pull it out and show the immense capacity for warmth and emotion, and creativity - we could in turn ask those people

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I haven`t seen this here, have you?

Ms Moon,
No wonder you get asked these sorts of questions. People living outside Islamistan judge your material development with your intellectual progress. Their apparently silly questions are justified when they see Muslims’ general worldview still pegged to the Dark Ages. Only if Muslims could modify their ideas, thoughts and attitudes with time as they adapt themselves with modern technology.

` ``Do you have cars in your country?`` this could never fail to throw me into fits of hilarity. `

Someone asked me, pointing towards a road we were walking along, ``Do you have roads like this in Pakistan?`` I felt like giving the petite figure a long hard glare, but I walked on.

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Farzana Moon

Enjoyed reading it. You are absolutely right.